Tetrahedron: The Series
by Woeth1215
Summary: A sci-fi tale that takes place in a pseduo-pokemon universe in which the home world, Gaia, where people and pokemon alike have learned to live in peace and harmony, is threatened by Orbiters, a collection of lawless fanatics that live scattered across the planet's three moons.
1. Episode 1: Space Hazards

**Episode 1: Space Hazards**

The twin head-lamps fastened to each side of his helmet illuminated the narrow cavern and set the jagged, teeth-like protrusions of milky and rose quartz twinkling against its dull siliceous groundmass. Edging himself forward gently, he watched as the sableye scraped against the silicate rock encasing a crystal on the cavern wall in a feverish attempt to expose the mineral. "Easy," he said into his headset. "Easy now." The tiny purple pokémon, in a jittery motion, rapidly flicked its head in Doron's direction, blue gemstone eyes reflecting back the rays of light from his head-lamps. He had strapped a small belt about the pokémon's waist on which was attached the frequency receiver with cords stretching up to a single earpiece and small microphone so that the sableye could hear his commands. Pausing only long enough to offer Doron an eerie, glistening razor-toothed grin, the sableye quickly returned to its task. Doron, pulling himself further into the cavern meter-by-meter, climbing horizontally, slowly swept past the pokémon, deeper into the asteroid. As he passed, the sableye began gnawing and grinding the quartz, giggling as it fed.

The asteroid was roughly 6 km in diameter and one of maybe a dozen in the cluster, most of which were much smaller. Doron recalled that the smallest he measured was only a few meters across. He'd explored the topography of many of the larger asteroids as well, but only a few had traces of quartz, rhodonite, amethyst, and various other silicate minerals. In fact, he had found that most were carbonaceous, up to 80%, with only traces of silicate and heavy metals like iron and lead. Sprinkled within the cluster, however, were asteroids like this one-like _O13-Z_ -those of whose origin, he was almost certain, were not of this star system.

The tunnel terminated into a semi-open chamber in which ancient collisions with nearby asteroids had exposed the natural enclosure to the frigid space beyond. He glided into the chamber head-first, feet outstretched behind him, reaching now for his camera bound to his belt. "Activate camera application," he said. To the right of his visor appeared a digital readout in dull green that indicated pixilation, zoom, frame width, and, at the bottom, the battery life percentage. As he neared the center of the chamber, he muttered, "Terminate velocity." Pressurized air blew from the two small hoses positioned on either shoulder, bringing him to rest. He was suspended momentarily in the middle of the chamber as he adjusted the camera lens. Slowly, the asteroid's gravity brought him to the chamber floor.

Before him emerged a massive vein of quartz surrounded by a crown of what appeared to be basaltic rock with red flakes of iron oxides. He knelt down, holding the camera outstretched, the image appearing on the translucent screen inside his visor. He snapped a few pictures, and put the camera away. "Close camera application," he said. Just then, he felt something tugging on the leg of his suit.

" _Sable, sable!_ " the sableye cried, staring up at him. " _Sable… sableye_."

Doron nodded. "Yes, yes, you can have some of this, too."

" _Sable!_ " the pokémon shrieked, grinning. It leapt forward towards the vein, but miscalculated the necessary velocity. It squealed as it zoomed right over the vein, only managing to scrape its claws across it as it went by, and smashed into the chamber wall.

"Sableye," Doron scorned. "Be careful."

The sableye scratched its sore head, grimacing. " _Sable… eye_ ," it groaned.

"Stop fooling around," Doron said, removing his pick and brush from his belt. "Help me get a sample of this quartz." The sableye crawled towards him, keeping its body low to the ground. "Be sure to get some of the surrounding rock. I don't think this vein is native."

" _Sableye_?" the pokémon said, curious.

Doron pointed at the various holes in the chamber walls. "See those? This asteroid has been impacted several times." The sableye looked up and wooed at the sight of the twinkling stars visible beyond the dark chamber walls. "There's no oxygen here," he said, going on. "Quartz is a mineral that requires oxygen to form." He struck a crevice between a crystal and its silicate mantle. "It couldn't have come from space," he explained. The sableye scraped at the vein's base, darting its gaze back and forth between Doron and the glistening quartz, occasionally grinding its teeth in hungry anticipation. "Not that oxygen matters to you, eh?"

The pokémon stopped, glanced up, grinned wildly. Doron laughed. "No, not to you. But most life on Gãia needs it. Without oxygen, most living things on the planet would cease to exist." He retrieved a small sealable bag from a belt-pouch, and unzipped it. Carefully, he added the samples into the bag. "Oxygen is the central component to metabolism, you know."

" _Sable, sable_ ," the pokémon said, bored. It pointed at the crystal and then back at its mouth. " _Sable!_ " it cried.

"Just a bit more," Doron said, patiently. "We want to be thorough."

Suddenly, a ringing tone began playing in his helmet and across his visor screen were the words, in red, _INCOMING CALL_. "Answer," he said.

"Dr. Woeth?" the voice on the other end said.

"Yes, Ahmed. We're almost finished here," Doron said into his mouthpiece. "ETA 20 minutes."

"Affirmative. I was just calling to let you know that a call came in over the 'com for you a few minutes ago. From VU," Ahmed said.

"Oh?" Doron rolled his eyes. "What do they want?"

"You to be at some conference. I don't remember, doc. I wrote down the date."

"How long?"

"Long?"

Doron sighed. "When's this 'conference?'"

"In a week, I think."

" _A week?_ " Doron said, incredulous. "We'd have to leave immediately to get there in time!"

"Yeah, I guess that's the bad news."

Doron groaned. _They will expect me to present, and I haven't any of my notes together_ , he thought. The university was infamous for its poor planning of so-called 'conferences'-in reality, Doron felt they were little more than social gatherings in which scientists who hadn't researched in the field in years sat around comfortably to critique those who still grinded day to day. _They will want to hear all about the minerals. They will want to know my explanations_. He sighed. He knew that they would drill him on his methodology, on his cluster selection, on his decision to spend so much of the university's research grant money on passage to the outer belt and whether it had yielded any tangible results. _Had it?_ he thought to himself. He had spent six years of his graduate career researching pokémon evolution in Todd Sweeney's lab-at the time, quite poorly funded but open-armed to new grad students. He had chosen the evolution of mineral-associated pokémon as his study species due to a rather obscure paper he'd read as an undergraduate by the physical chemist, Julio Vasquez. In it, Vasquez had argued that the mineral-associated pokémon did not represent some anomaly in pokémon evolution, but rather the ancestral state of the first space-faring-and, ultimately, Gãia colonizing-pokémon species.

"Dr. Woeth? You there?" Ahmed said, breaking Doron's train of thought.

"Yes, apologies," he said. "Where are you in orbit?"

"Position 270°," Ahmed said. "Relative velocity is… 50 m/s."

Doron sighed in exasperation. "Do the math, Ahmed. I haven't a calculator."

"Sure you do," Ahmed joked. "Use your calculator app on your visor interface."

Doron had forgotten about that. As a biologist, he'd spent much of his schooling around organic, biological organisms-he often found himself wholly ignorant of emerging technology. "Fine, give me a second," he said. "Activate calculator application." A transparent, scientific calculator appeared on the right-hand side of his visor interface. _Alright, Ahmed is in orbit around the asteroid cluster at 50 m/s. He's at position 270°, which is (0, -1) of the unit circle, as we defined the positions. Luckily, I'm at the 90° position, or (0, 1), exactly 180° from Ahmed. The computers indicated that the circumference of the cluster was…_ he thought for a moment. _70 km. Okay, so if circumference is C = πd, then the diameter is the circumference divided by π._ "Calculator," he said. "70 / π." The interface responded: "22.28." _Alright, so he's 22.28 km away, on the opposite side of the cluster._ Doron knew that he'd need to convert this value into meters. He closed his eyes and attempted the multiplication in his head. _Okay, since there are 1,000 meters in 1 kilometer, I just need to shift the decimal point over the same number of 0's as in the equivalent meters. That means that he's… 22,280 m away_. _Traveling at 50 m/s, he'll be here in_ … "Calculator. 22,280 / 50."

Interface: "445.6"

 _That's in seconds_ , he thought. "445.6 / 60," he said. Interface: "7.4."

"I'll be there in five minutes," Doron said, finally.

Ahmed laughed heartily on the other end of the line. "I'll be right behind you, doctor!"

Doron signed off the calculator application and began returning his tools to the proper slots on his belt. His movements were clumsy and lumbering due to the immense girth of his suit. The temperature in the asteroid's chamber was the same as space-about 3 K, or -270.15°C. This meant that the bulk of his suit's size was dedicated to insulating him-much different than the suits he wore while strolling around the portcullis or the catwalk outside the university. There, in the suspended atmosphere above Vion's volcanic surface, he needed only an aluminized fire proximity suit-light-weight and flexible, save for the oxygen tank he was forced to lug around. _Why they decided to build the system's most elite university in the atmosphere of a molten planet is still a mystery to me_ , he thought.

" _Sable, sable!_ " the sableye cried as it chipped off chunks of crystal and stuffed them into its mouth.

"Time to go," he said. "Come on." He lifted his feet off the ground, allowing the lack of gravity to leave him suspended above the chamber floor, and reached out to grab the protruding rocks to propel him forward. "And Sableye," he said, turning back to the little purple pokémon that had now climbed wholly atop the vein and proceeded to attempt to fit the entire quartz cluster into its mouth, "do be careful, will you?"

" _Shabshabshab_ ," it uttered, its mouth full of crystals.

Doron scoured. "Don't talk with your mouth full. Now come on."

They propelled weightlessly through the asteroid's shallow cavern, the rays of his head-lamps bouncing prettily off the jutting crystal veins surrounding them, the sableye's gemstone eyes glistening as it gazed at each of them, gnashing its teeth. They reached the cavern's mouth within minutes, and Doron tethered himself to the rocky threshold with a hook attached to an elastic rope. He gazed out across the asteroid's surface-the rising, silt-covered hills and the smooth plains intersecting the crooked, pointed cliffs, craters that formed an array of tiny basins along the periphery of the cavern's mouth. Above them, twirling freely in the expanse of space as if in eternal cosmic dance were many other smaller asteroids, some coated with gray dust and others entirely encased in ice. Beyond these, he could see the Neȋndur nebula, a cascading amorphous cloud of hydrogen and carbonaceous dust particles radiating green and purple against the blackness, and from within three bright, new stars glimmered. _Even hundreds of light-years away_ , he thought, _the sight is still breath-taking_.

From behind the mountainous distance emerged the _Kalos_. The vessel was one of the largest of its kind, half a kilometer in length from nose to thrusters, with two halo-chambers on either side of its midsagittal plane. These chambers were narrow, circular compartments that rotated about a central disk, utilizing centripetal force to simulate gravity. The ship sported both a dorsal and ventral saw-toothed fin, each of which were painted turquoise, while only the former had the letters _S_ scrawled across it. The entire ship, Doron was told, had to be assembled in space because it was too massive to escape the planet's atmosphere, and too dangerous to be launched with traditional fuels. The nose was blunt and painted to look like the pokémon Sharpedo, complete with red eyes shadowed by dark, semi-circular lines on a field of blue; whereas the underbelly was painted white. The ship appeared to be gliding as it approached-Ahmed was utilizing the cluster's gravity to hold the ship in orbit, only firing the thrusters to correct if necessary.

"To the pod," Doron said, gesturing to the small landing pod they had used to touchdown on the surface. He bent over and extended the hook-rack at the nose and heel of his boots, and drew his pick. "Easy, now," he said. "Not too fast." The sableye nodded, holding itself to the rocky surface and slowly crawling towards the pod. Doron cautiously placed one boot after the other-the last thing he wanted was to move too fast and sail right off the asteroid. _The gravity should be enough to keep me surface-bound if I don't move too fast_ , he thought as he inched forward.

" _Sableye! Sable!_ " the pokémon called back to Doron as it climbed aboard the pod. The pod was anchored by a series of hooks around each extended metallic leg. Sableye opened the hatch at the top of the pod, and gestured for Doron. " _Sable!_ " it cried.

"What're you screaming about?" he called. "I'll be there in-"

Doron never saw the asteroid spiraling towards him, and even after it slammed into the surface, just meters behind him, he didn't realize it until he felt the shockwave that sent him head-over-heels into space. As he twirled, all he could hear was the sableye crying into his headset, " _Sable! Sable! Sable! Sable!_ "

"Argh!" he shouted, arms flailing, trying to stop the spinning but completely helpless to do so. "Terminate velocity!" he screamed. "Terminate velocity!" The twin hose shot out puffs of air, but the computer was incapable of recognizing that Doron was spinning. The air sent him sprawling back onto the asteroid. The force knocked his breath out and he struggled to regain it, crawling away from the impact sight as debris sprayed in all directions. He could feel pellets of rock pelting his back and legs, and he cried out in pain as he tried to drag himself away. He rolled over to sit up, but as he did his visor was slammed by a chunk of rock that sent a crack spider-webbing across the glass.

 _I'm going to die_ , he thought, falling onto his back from the impact. _I'm going to die out here in space on this terrible asteroid. I'm going to get pulverized._ The computer interface snapped off and on, a robotic voice over his intercom fading in and out, saying, " _Oxygen… this… a… warning… oxygen… depletion… imminent…_ " He began gasping for air and he watched as frost rapidly gathered on the inside of his helmet as the moisture reacted with the near zero degree temperature outside.

As he began fading out, a figure appeared standing over him. It seemed to have tentacles-or multiple arms-and it knelt down over Doron. Just before he passed out, he saw into its gaping white eyes a single black dot that he thought could have been the moment of the universe's singularity.


	2. Episode 2: Unforgiving

**Episode 2: Unforgiving**

The _Kalos_ fitness center was a sprawling room cluttered with various workout equipment, metallic racks supporting dumbbells and other free-weights, with a white-tile floor that was almost blinding as it reflected the bright fluorescent lights overhead. The walls were all mirrors save for the sporadically placed window from which Shawna could see the asteroid cluster in the foreground-massive heaps of rock in lumbering orbit-and behind was Gãia, an enormous sphere of blue awash with blankets of white, wispy clouds interrupted by the occasional brown and green landmasses. Beyond the local cluster, in varying orbital patterns, were other asteroids-indeed, the planet seemed to sport alternating halos of asteroids like so many electrons about a nucleus.

Beads of sweat peppered her forehead as she ran; the treadmill whirring and occasionally announcing from its digital screen her heart-rate, as well as notifying her each time she reached the kilometer mark. The center was deathly silent save for the treadmill's small electrical engine and rotating conveyer belt coupled with her own heavy breathing. She was not alone, however. Across the room, peering out one of the windows was a mawile, a short, bipedal pokémon with beige skin that flayed about its feet like bell-bottom leggings. An innocent, cute face with doll-like eyes, the pokémon's immediate appearance could easily deceive the unaware, for protruding from the back of its head raised a massive set of black jaws with rows of sharp, fearsome fangs. It pressed its tiny hands against the glass, whining softly.

"Doron will be back soon," Shawna said to it, slightly out of breath. "Don't you worry." The mawile turned to her with melancholy eyes. "I promise."

" _Maw maw_ ," it said in a voice like a child's. " _Maw mawile_."

She ran five kilometers before taking a break. She stepped off the treadmill and took a seat on the cushioned bench against the far wall, wiping her face with a white towelette and shooting a stream of water from her bottle into her parched mouth. The muscles in her legs ached and her heart was beating rapidly. They had spent three months in Gãia's orbit, sampling various asteroid clusters, and in such low-gravity conditions she had to be vigilant to reduce her risk of bone density loss. She spent as much time as possible in the halo-chambers with their simulated gravity, but the centripetal force they utilized made her nauseous and was not entirely ideal-or Gãia-like, for that matter. Enough for her to stay stationary and run on a treadmill, but hardly sufficient to completely negate reduced bone and muscle mass.

When not in the fitness center, Shawna spent her time on _Kalos_ in the lab pouring through Doron's samples. She subjected each to infrared spectroscopy, a technique she had learned in her undergraduate chemistry labs, and cross-checked her results with the on-ship mass spectrometer. With these two machines, she could normally deduce the exact chemical composition of Doron's rocky collections. In truth, most of them had been unimpressive. Silicates were hardly revolutionary stuff to find on asteroids. However, he had produced an impressive array of crystalline minerals that, from her limited knowledge of geology, could only be formed in the presence of intense heat and pressure, such as what occurs in hydrothermal vents. _And which doesn't typically appear on asteroids_ , she thought as she wet her towel with her water bottle and then dabbed her neck. _He thinks these crystals were formed on some other planet and were transported here somehow_. She shook her head, grinning. She wasn't sure, but the hypothesis was tantalizing enough to draw her to the study. She had only just graduated with her PhD in Organic Chemistry from Lumiose University in Kalos, and was pretty eager to get involved in exciting research. She had been informed of the study by Professor Jørdyn, who had instructed her Chemical Thermodynamics course in graduate school, and who offered to sponsor her application. She would only later discover that Jørdyn and Doron had attended the same university as undergraduates-the system's most elite university on Vion-and were good friends. _The history of the universe is one of contingency_ , she thought, shaking her head, recalling the words of the evolutionary biologist, Jay Dould. _Had I not attended that thermodynamics course, and had Jørdyn not happened to have attended the same university as Doron, perhaps I would not have had the opportunity to be here at all_. Her application was solid, with ample experience with complex organic molecules in the laboratory, but she had never been to space, much less to the outer belt.

"Mawile, I'm going to find Lickitung. Care to join?" she asked, standing up. The mawile turned to her, stared up at her with pouting eyes, and then turned back to the window. "Suit yourself," she said. She made her way out of the fitness center and into the halo's narrow hallway. The tiled floor was lined on either side with small LED lights and the walls had a slight curvature that gave a tunnel-like impression. Support bars ran the length of the hall in case of low-gravity situations. The walls were decorated with posters of pokémon, famous scientists, trainers, maps, and portraits of Ahmed's family, including one of his wife and daughter that always brought a warm smile to Shawna's face. _I know he misses them a lot_ , she thought. _These trips can last so long… how much does he miss out on?_ She knew going into STEM that the life of a research scientist could be grueling-long hours in exotic, often dangerous locations, sometimes literally on different planets. Her parents were not particularly thrilled with her decision, either. Her father at least feigned support, telling her how proud he was when she was accepted as part of this research team, but her mother had begged her not to go. "Why not stay here and get a job at the lab? Why do you have to go to the belt? You know how dangerous it is out there," she had said.

"Mom, I'll be fine," Shawna assured her. "These missions are quite routine. Dr. Woeth has done this dozens of times without so much as a hiccup."

"What about the Orbiters? What if you get kidnapped?"

Shawna rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to get kidnapped off an asteroid, Mom."

"How do you know? Can you know that for sure?"

No, she couldn't. But she'd never tell her mother that. "Of course, it's never happened before," she lied. "Plus, if anything were to happen I'll have Lickitung and Pumpkaboo to protect me."

The halo chamber was rooted to the ship by a cylindrical rod attached to a small, round compartment that acted like a flywheel with tracks around its circumference to allow the halo to rotate. She slid down ladder that ran the length of the cylinder, and by the time she entered the compartment adjacent to the ship's hull, she was weightless. She opened the hatch into the gallery, spinning the wheel latch and then tugging the heavy lever to unlock the door. She sealed it shut behind her, her legs slowly starting to rise above her body as she worked, and when finished she propelled herself forward by pushing off the door. The gallery, like the tunnel connecting the halo chamber to the ship's hull, was cylindrical and along the curved walls were fastened rows of leather seats complete with shoulder and waist belts to secure passengers. Seated in one was Zhou Fei, a young research assistant to Doron, her legs crossed and reading a novel. She wore black-rimmed glasses and a simple one-piece, white suit that was standard wear aboard space shuttles. Her shoulder-length, jet black hair was tied up behind her head with a bright red ribbon. Strapped into the seat beside her, snoozing, was a mudkip, the occasional bubble rising from its open mouth and popping just above the fins on its brow.

"Fei," Shawna said to her, "have you seen Lickitung?"

Fei glanced up from her book, startled. "Oh! Sorry, Shawna! I didn't see you there! You scared me."

"Sorry, I would've thought you had heard me close the latch door."

Fei shook her head. "No, I was completely engrossed!" she said, holding the book up. "What did you need?"

"Lickitung. I need to make sure it isn't getting into anything."

"Hm," Fei said, stroking her chin. "I haven't seen it. But I did hear some rumbling from the kitchen earlier. Maybe it got hungry?"

"I locked the pantry," Shawna explained, grinning. "That lickitung ate three days' worth of provisions in one sitting the other day. It's going on a diet."

"Oh, come now!" Fei said, laughing. "You know those serving sizes are pretty small, especially for a pokémon with an appetite like Lickitung!"

Shawna shrugged. "We've all had to make sacrifices on this trip. That pudgy pokémon can afford to drop a few kilograms."

Suddenly, a loud ringing sound came from the intercom speakers overhead. " _Attention_ ," Ahmed's voice announced. " _Attention, please. We will be retrieving Dr. Woeth in approximately 7.4 minutes. Please use caution around the docking bay area._ "

 _Odd_ , Shawna thought. _I thought we wouldn't be retrieving Doron for another half hour. What gives?_ "I need to find Lickitung," she told Fei, and waved as she pushed off the wall, sending herself in the direction of the kitchen.

"Bye, bye now!" Fei called, returning to her book. The mudkip's eyes opened and it looked confused for a moment, as if it had no idea how it had gotten there, and then it burped, giggled, and went back to sleep.

She found the plump, pink pokémon licking its paws as it twirled aimlessly through the kitchen, visibly frustrated. Its small, beady eyes were narrowed and its brow furrowed, its thick tail wagging furiously. " _Licki-licka!_ " it cried. Once it saw Shawna enter the room, it cheered up, flinging its wet, elastic tongue out in her direction. " _Licki! Tung tung!_ "

"Lickitung, what're you doing in here?" she asked, gliding across the room and embracing it. The lickitung gestured at a poster on the wall of a basket overflowing with fresh fruit. "You know we don't have any fresh fruit here," Shawna explained. "Fruit spoils, it wouldn't last the trip. Only MREs are allowed."

Lickitung turned and spat in disgust.

"You liked them just fine the other day," she said, laughing. "Come on, Lickitung, let's join Fei in the gallery. We're about to pick up Doron."

They returned to the gallery to find Ahmed, pale-faced, hovering just outside the pilot's bay. Fei had her hands cupped over her ajar mouth, and the mudkip's face was buried in her lap, whimpering. The mawile was at her side, tears free-floating around its childlike face. Vario, the ship's mechanic, had also joined them. He was a short, balding man with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick mustachio. He was clad in a blue jumpsuit and wore a leather tool-belt about his waist and lace-up black boots. Vario was flanked by his two pokémon, Karrablast and Klink, the first of which was a small, oblong bug with a wrench-shaped ornamental horn, and the latter resembled steely gears with clown-like, bulbous noses on the twin gears.

"What's going on?" Shawna asked.

Ahmed's expression was pained. "I'm sorry, Dr. Walker," he said, his gaze falling to his boots, eyes reddening with tears. His slick black hair, normally meticulously styled and kept, was frazzled, and his bushy beard was wild as if reflecting the tension on the ship. Behind him stood his pokémon and co-pilot, Chesnaught, broad-shouldered with plated arms folded across its massive chest. Its white, furry mane reached midway down its abdomen and its shell-like armor draping its back sported enormous spines. Eyes downcast, like its trainer's, the chesnaught's chest heaved with heavy breaths. "The…" he began, choked, cleared his throat, and tried again: "The asteroid Dr. Woeth was sampling has been struck."

"Struck?" Shawna asked, feeling a lump forming in her throat.

Ahmed nodded. "Yes. A few minutes ago, we detected a 10 m asteroid that seemed to have been knocked out of its normal orbit heading straight toward _O13-Z_. It made impact less than 20 m from the cavern Dr. Woeth was exploring."

Shawna ran her fingers through her thick dreads that she wore tied back behind her head. She tried to remain composed. "Have we heard anything from him? Anything over the 'com?"

Ahmed shook his head. "No," he said. "His 'com has gone silent. I tried to activate his suit's vitals, but the signal is lost."

She took a deep breath. "Do we have visual on him?"

"The impact created a dust cloud around the area that has yet to settle."

"What about the pod? Has it been activated?"

Ahmed nodded. "Actually, yes. The system indicated that the pod was activated shortly before impact, but it has since idled."

"Then maybe the pod's launch gear was damaged. We should get down there immediately," Shawna said, kicking off the floor and gliding in Ahmed's direction. Adjacent the pilot's bay was the suit closet, but as she reached for the door Ahmed placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Shawna," he said, not looking at her. "It's too dangerous."

She eyed him, incredulous. "What?" She glanced back at Vario and Fei, each of them watching quietly. "You can't be serious," she said. "We can't _leave_ him there. We have to get down there and help him!"

" _Licki-tung!_ " the lickitung shouted in agreement behind her.

" _Mawile!_ " seconded the mawile, now moving to stand beside Shawna. It pointed up at Ahmed as if to lecture him. " _Maw maw, mawile!_ "

"Please, you don't understand," Ahmed pleaded. "There's no way for me to stop the ship, and I don't have visual on the asteroid's surface. If you go now, you'll be completely on your own. I won't be able to guide you from up here."

Shawna clenched her fists defiantly. "I'll be fine."

"Shawna," Vario said now from behind them. "Asteroid different, not like planet. Walking dangerous. Space…" he thought for a moment, searching for the word. "Space _unforgiving_."

"I will not abandon Doron. I could never forgive _myself_ , if I did," she said, shrugging off Ahmed's hand and throwing open the suit closet door.

"Very good then," Vario said, "Me go with you."

"You don't have to do that, Vario," she said, glancing back over her shoulder.

"Yes, yes. Me must."

"Very well," she said. "Let's go."


	3. Episode 3: A Math Problem

**Episode 3: A Math Problem**

Ahmed stooped across Shawna, firmly tugging her shoulder harness to ensure it was fastened correctly, eyes darting to every corner of the landing pod as if scanning for any potential malfunctions, anomalies. He patted Chesnaught on its bulky shoulder, said something to it under his breath, and then hunkered down on the metallic floor next to Shawna. The pod was structured like a dome and plated with reinforced carbon-carbon black tiles capable of withstanding intense temperatures upon entering a planet's atmosphere. A ring of LED lights surrounded the supportive steel beams that circled the cabin, and apart from the numerous bright computer screens immediately in front of the pilot's chair provided the only source of lighting for the pod. The seats were organized in a triangular fashion, with the passenger seats flanking the pilot's. Vario was strapped into the seat beside her, quietly breathing into his helmet, his dark eyes calm and his thin lips dry and unmoving beneath his gray mustache. The pokémon Chesnaught was fiddling with the screen displaying the landing and launch parameters, Ahmed watching from over its shoulder and occasionally correcting it.

Shawna shifted uncomfortably. "Pokémon don't fly spaceships where I'm from," she said, nervously.

Ahmed glanced back over his shoulder. "We're not where you're from."

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm just nervous." She paused for a moment, then added: "I'm ready to get down there and find Doron."

Ahmed leaned back, holding himself in place with the aid of the support bars, and calmly said, "The universe is a math problem."

"What?"

"You see, we can't just throw you out into space." He gestured towards the small blue screen to the chesnaught's left that displayed fuel percentage. "This pod was designed to contain just enough fuel to slow down the pod upon re-entry, and to take-off if necessary. That means that any of it used for _other_ purposes, such as redirecting you if you've strayed off course, would be wasteful. And it may prevent you from ever getting off that rock." Ahmed leaned forward, corrected Chesnaught's calculations, and then turned back to Shawna. "Once you're off this hunk, you're on your own. You'll be traveling at the same velocity as this ship is, you'll only be able to control your initial directionality."

Shawna sighed. "I've had three semesters of Calculus, I'll have you know."

"Good," Ahmed said, patting her on the shoulder, patronizingly. "Then you're already fully aware that your landing position must be carefully and accurately calculated _before_ you take off, or you'll either miss the asteroid completely or, possibly, smash into a nearby one." He ran his fingers through his dark, greasy hair. "You won't be much help to Dr. Woeth if you get pulverized out there."

She let her eyes fall to her lap. "I'm sorry, Ahmed," she said. "Please, just finish your calculations so we can get out there and help Doron."

He nodded. "I want you to bring the good doctor back here in one piece, too. But Miss Walker," he said, leaning in close to her visor, "I want Chesnaught's safety assured. No offense, but it's more important to me than any of you."

She could see the intense anxiety in his eyes. "I understand. We'll keep it safe."

He let out a calming breath, offered her a weak smile. "I know you will. It'll all work out." The chesnaught growled in frustration, turning Ahmed's attention to it. He leaned once more over its shoulder. "Vector, Chesnaught! Vector! You're in scalar quantities. By the expanse, remember a ship has both _magnitude_ and _direction_ … Yes, yes, _that_ value… No, the one with the arrow over the variable… Yes, you've got it."

She closed her eyes. _If I die out here_ , she thought, _I will get my name on a plaque in UV's Hall of Remembrance with all the other retards that took positions like these. It's all for the adventure, it's all for the thrill of discovery_ , she thought, grinning now, incredulously. _Flying into an asteroid cluster, led by a pokémon that may or may not know the difference between a scalar and vector quantity, in a can no bigger than my bedroom back home._ She sighed. _Much ado about nothing_. "Calculator application," she said to her visor's computer interface. "Kinematic equation for constant acceleration in two dimensions, please." The interface displayed: " _x_ = _x_ _0_ \+ _v_ _0_ _t_ \+ 1/2 _a_ _x_ _t_ _2_." _No_ , she thought, _there's no acceleration. And the gravity of the cluster is almost negligible. That renders the last half as 0_. "Remove last variable from the equation," she said. "Now, replace _x_ with our current distance from the asteroid, _O13-Z_." The interface substituted the value for _x_ as '26 km.' _We're moving_ away _from the asteroid now, though. We'll have to wait for another pass or we'll be slung in the wrong direction_. She groaned. _Just deal_. "Substitute _v_ _0_ with 50 m/s." _That takes care of our initial velocity, v_ _0_ _, and our final position, x. Our initial position, x_ _0_ _, defined as 0._ "Define _x_ _0_ as 0," she told the interface. "Now solve for _t_." The computer showed its steps: it divided _x_ by the value of _v_ _0_ to isolate the _t_ value after first converting the _x_ value into meters so that the units agreed. This maneuver cancelled out the 'meter' unit, leaving only the time unit, in seconds, s, and displayed the value as: "520 s." _That's almost 9 minutes. Which means once we're out of this bay, we'll be in open space for 9 minutes before touching down on the asteroid_.

"My calculations indicate it'll take 9 minutes to reach the asteroid at a distance of 26 km," she said. "Is that correct?"

Ahmed glanced back. "Not quite. If that's the case, you'll slam into the asteroid at 50 m/s. That's fast enough to turn this pod into a crushed soda can. Chesnaught will have to initiate backward thrusters to slow you down long before then."

She hadn't thought of that. _Of course, we'll have to slow down._ "How will we know when to launch?"

"We'll triangulate it," he said, using his hands to demonstrate. "Imagine a 90° triangle in which the height represents the distance from the _Kalos_ to the center of the cluster. Since _O13-Z_ rests at the (0, 1) position-"

"Wait, the what?"

"Oh, sorry. The doctor and I devised a scheme to prescribe position locations around the cluster using the unit circle as a reference."

She pursed her lips. "Of course you did."

"Anyway, once we are at position 0°, precisely 90° from the asteroid, we will release the pod. Now, the _base_ of the triangle is the distance from the center of the cluster to the asteroid, and therefore the route that the pod will travel will be the triangle's _hypotenuse_. Which, fortuitously, provides us with the exact distance at which we need to launch." Ahmed smiled, prideful. Chesnaught turned its head and piped in: " _Ches!_ " in its gruff, deep voice.

"So it's the Pythagorean theorem," Shawna said.

Ahmed shrugged. "Basically. We're adjusting a few of the variables to account for other nuances, but that's the fundamental idea."

Vario glanced over at her. " _Physics_ ," he spat. "Much and much. Letters, numbers. Me need wrench. Acetylene torch."

"And that's why you're not the pilot of this ship, Nuñez. You can't throw wrenches at space," Ahmed said.

Vario raised an eyebrow. "Me can throw wrench at Ahmed's head."

Shawna giggled, touched Vario on the shoulder. "I would love to see that."

Once Ahmed was adequately satisfied, he exited the pod, giving Chesnaught one last hug before leaving and speaking low into its ear. It spoke straight into its eyes, then, saying, "Take care, my friend."

" _Naught_ ," the pokémon replied, nodding.

Several minutes later, the pod was lifted off the bay floor by dual steel arms operated remotely by Ahmed in the cockpit. The floor then began to rumble and Shawna saw red caution lights twirling through the window above the bay floor. " _Caution, opening launch bay_ ," Ahmed's voice announced over the ship's intercom system. They were descended then, lowered by the twin arms that cradled the landing pod like a mother to a child, and she marveled at the view that soon came into focus-the vessel's massive underbelly, the expanse of darkness illuminated periodically by distant stars and galaxies, the asteroid cluster hovering mere kilometers away. " _Nearing release position_ ," Ahmed announced, his voice now only within the pod's radio. " _Adjusting pod angle to 45° relative to the center of the cluster_." She felt the pod shifting positions, but without the aid of gravity she couldn't discern which way it was tilting, and without air for the sound to travel through, she could not hear steel arms scraping across the pod's exterior. She could only feel the waves of force as it altered position, shifting the pod into the necessary angle and path trajectory.

" _Release in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…_ "

Chesnaught threw a lever that fired the thruster with just enough force to maintain the pod's directionality as the robotic arms released and slung the pod into a free-fall toward _O13-Z_. From Shawna's view within the cabin, she could not tell the pod had changed course at all-or was even moving, for that matter. The pod's dashboard provided the numerical evaluation of their descent, and she watched as the kilometer-distance rapidly closed. As they entered the cluster, the pod was pelted by tiny debris particles that rattled and jarred its passengers; Shawna held her eyes closed now, teeth clenched, and she felt her stomach turn at each impact. Her heart thudded in her chest and she pumped her fists nervously, panting now, until she felt Vario's hand on her arm. She glanced over at the old, grizzled mechanic who offered her a calm, gentle smile. " _Estate calmado_ ," he said. " _Todo va estar bien_."

She nodded within her helmet. " _Bien gracias_." He went to remove his hand then, but she grabbed it firmly. " _Por favor_ ," she said. " _No dejar ir, por favor_."

" _Sí_ ," he agreed, intertwining his fingers in hers'.

The intercom blasted the cabin with a moment of static before Ahmed's voice emerged, saying: " _On course, Chesnaught. ETA 6 minutes. Prepare to initiate backward thrusters_."

The chesnaught grunted and reached across the dashboard with its huge, bulbous fingers and flipped a small steely switch. It then began to punch into the keyboard a series of digital codes, occasionally pausing to announce, " _Chesnaught!_ " before returning to the monitor.

" _Initiate!_ " Ahmed commanded. The chesnaught took hold of the thruster lever and eased it forward. For the first time, Shawna felt a heavy force against her chest as the thruster attempted to mitigate the forward velocity. She tried to watch the monitor track the pod's decreasing velocity, but her stomach began to ache and she closed her eyes and groaned as the vessel began to vibrate violently. " _You're coming in too hot_ ," Ahmed said. " _Increase backward thrust_." The chesnaught pushed the lever further, growling as it worked. The sounds within the cabin began to overwhelm her ears as Ahmed and Chesnaught barked at one another across the intercom, Ahmed now shouting that the pokémon must slow the pod down, the chesnaught grunting and growling in response, the monitor announcing estimated velocity at impact, estimated time until impact, _WARNING-WARNING-WARNING_. " _Chesss-NAUGHT!_ " the pokémon roared as it slammed the lever against the dashboard fully. " _23 m/s upon impact_ ," the monitor announced. _By the expanse_ , she thought, _we'll be crushed_. " _WARNING, WARNING, WARNING_ ," the intercom announced again and again. " _18 m/s upon impact_ ," the monitor said, a moment later. _Come on, come on!_ she thought, squeezing Vario's hand and gritting her teeth.

Overhead, twirling just into view was a potato-shaped icy rock half a kilometer wide. "Chesnaught!" Shawna screamed, pointing up at it.

" _Naught, naught!_ " it shouted in reply as the vessel soared just beneath the asteroid, bits of jagged ice scraping the pod's hatch as it passed.

" _10 m/s upon impact_ ," the monitor now said. _The rock slowed us down some_ , she thought, sighing in relief.

" _Chesnaught_ ," Ahmed's voice then returned to the radio. " _Initiate landing gear_."

Shawna could see the asteroid clearly before them now. Easily the largest in the cluster, the spherical, dusty mass rotated much slower than the surrounding smaller particles, and she could make out twisting ranges of mountains cradling deep, dark valleys and expansive plains peppered with cratered basins. As they drew nearer, she spotted a mound of shattered rock that was almost certainly the sight of the impact as around it was only just settling clouds of dust and debris. _Where is the landing pod?_ she thought, scanning the siliceous terrain. _It should be nearby_. But as they drew nearer and nearer, her mind finally registered the speed at which they were traveling and she shut her eyes.

The entire cabin quaked as the pod touched-down on the asteroid surface. " _Chesnaught, are you there? Chesnaught?_ " Ahmed's voice called out. Shawna slowly opened her eyes and saw the pokémon sitting slumped over the dashboard.

"Chesnaught?" she called to it, trying to reach out and shake it but she was restrained by her belt. The pokémon was still, giving no indication that it heard either Shawna or Ahmed over the intercom. She fumbled with her belt strap, tearing through the locking mechanism. As she rose from her seat, she noticed white smoke rising from a busted monitor and a thin stream of blood running down the chesnaught's forehead. "Oh my," she said, pulling the hefty pokémon up from the dash. "Are you alright?"

The chesnaught slowly opened its eyes, dazed. " _Ches?_ "

"You hit your head pretty hard," she said. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

It rubbed the purplish bruise on its forehead. " _Naught…_ " it groaned.

" _Are you guys alright down there? Hello?_ " Ahmed said, his voice becoming frantic.

Shawna turned to the speaker. "Yes. We're alright. Chesnaught is a little banged up." She glanced out of the window and saw strips of bent steel scattered across the dusty plain. "Looks like we might've come in too fast. Landing gear is…"

" _Yes?_ " Ahmed asked, anxiously.

She shook her head. "It's maimed. The computer is shot."

" _Vario?_ "

She glanced back at the mechanic, pale-faced but otherwise unharmed. "He looks… normal."

" _Can you see Dr. Woeth's pod from your location?_ "

She glanced back out the window, but saw nothing save for the broken landing gear and rolling clouds of dust. "No, maybe if I open the hatch and step out I'll be able to see it."

" _Be sure Chesnaught has oxygen, first. It can survive the temperatures just fine, but it needs oxygen_ ," Ahmed explained.

"Affirmative." She reached beneath the dashboard and retrieved the canister of O2 attached to a clear hose replete with a breathing mask. She sat the canister in the chesnaught's lap. "I'm going to open the hatch. Use this," she said. The chesnaught looked from her to the canister, and back to her, before nodding. "I'll be right back."

" _Ches_ ," it said, nodding. It lifted the breathing mask and placed it against its face, turning the nozzle to release the air.

"Vario," she called. "Keep an eye on the chesnaught. Make sure it's okay. I'm going to have a walk around, see if I can't spot Doron's pod."

Vario nodded. " _Sí, sí_ ," he said. "Me stay."

Shawna pushed off the back of the chesnaught's chair, propelling herself upwards towards the heavy hatch-door. She took hold of the lever and attempted to pry it open, but it wouldn't budge. _Drats_ , she thought, applying more pressure. _It's stuck_. _The impact with that icy rock must've dented the door inward_. She scanned the cabin for something to brace herself on.

" _Señorita_ ," Vario said from below. "Take this." He produced from his tool-belt a ½ meter pry-bar, releasing it and allowing it to gently glide up to her. She caught the tool in mid-air and thrust the forked, wedge-end between the hatch and the cabin compartment. "More," he said. She pressed harder, shoving the pry-bar deeper into the crevice. "Now," he said, "push!"

She did, and the hatch door flung open. Above her sprawled the entire universe, naked, vast, and unforgiving. Beyond the belt, hundreds of light years away, in radiating pillars of green and purple dust, spiraled the Neîndur nebula-the gaseous remnants of a violent supernova that had spewed its fused innards across the galaxy.


	4. Episode 4: The Dream Tower

**Episode 4: The Dream Tower**

The sprawling, flat desert plain stretched for what seemed an eternity, interrupted sporadically by twisted, spiraling plateaus of red and orange sediment and the hunched, cratered dunes that dotted the horizon. The incessant forces of air and dust had weathered the once mighty mountains and boulders to mere stony fingers like jagged nails protruding from the desolate earth. The dry, crumbling dirt cracked beneath his boots as he trekked northward, his eyes shielded from the sandstorms that raged periodically by thick goggles and his nose and mouth were draped by a red and white checkered scarf. Wrapped about his head was a thick turban to protect his scalp from the intense ultraviolet rays that stabbed down from the blue, cloudless sky. He was clad in a leather trenchcoat, a button-up beige vest beneath, rough handspun breeches that were tucked into his worn boots, and across his back was slung a pack from which Sableye peaked out, its purple, clawed hand shielding its gemstone eyes from the sunlight. Just behind him, tiny hands cupped over its eyes and head bowed, struggling through the sand, was Mawile. He wore a heavy belt with a gaudy brass buckle that supported several pouches and had slits for sample vials, his pick fastened at his hip. As he approached a shaded valley dipped between two monstrous sediment formations, he produced his tablet. The device was reinforced by shock-absorbent encasing and a thin plastic cover over the monitor to prevent scratching. He leaned against the boulder, taking deep, tired breaths, fingering the tablet. He searched the navigation log. They'd traveled 8 kilometers northward through Route 111 and for half the journey they marched through blinding sandstorms.

" _Sable_ ," the sableye said, emerging halfway out of the pack, clawing its way onto Doron's shoulder. " _Sable sableye_."

"Not much further," Doron said, out of breath. He pointed northwest. "The nav indicates the tower is less than 2 kilometers in that direction."

" _Maw-wile!_ " the mawile said from below, gesturing at its mouth. Doron produced a metal canteen and handed it to the parched pokémon. He glanced up at the sun that seared the earth around them, then slipped back his sleeve to check his watch. _Only three hours of sunlight left_ , he thought. _We can make it_.

"We'll camp at the tower," he explained to the pokémon. The mawile drank deeply from the canteen, letting some of the cool water run down its face. "We need to keep moving."

Doron adjusted the turban on his head, drank from the canteen, and then pressed on, the mawile on his heels and the sableye slinking back down into the pack. As he walked, he felt an eerie feeling wash over him. He stopped, glanced around. _Something isn't right_ , he thought. _Something is out of place_. He scanned the desert terrain but could find no anomalies-only hot, dusty rocks and sand. He swallowed hard, tried to shake-off the feeling. _Just 2 kilometers and we'll be there_ , he told himself. _We'll get some much needed rest. This heat is getting to me_.

Even as he tried to convince himself of this, he couldn't shrug off the bizarre feeling in his gut. As they crossed the plain, the clouds of sand swirling around them, he tried to place it-something familiar, maybe. Something… like a memory.

The tower appeared before them then, a spiraling spire of stone and sand, piercing the blue horizon, ominously shrouded in a dust storm as if it were the center of a tornado. It stood alone in an empty depression haloed by weathered stones. They climbed across the rocky enclosure and began the slight descent towards the tower. He could see now at its base a dark, doorless opening. As they drew nearer, a figure appeared in the doorway.

" _Maw! Mawile!_ " the mawile cried, pointing at it. For a moment, Doron thought he could see tentacles rising from around the figure, but as it stepped into the sunlight he saw it was a man.

"Who goes there?" he called to him.

The man didn't answer, slowly marching towards them. He wore a blue robe and a white turban, his flesh bronze-colored and a black mustache with curled ends sat atop his thick lips. On his waist he wore a menacing scimitar and Doron could see a row of pokéballs fastened on the opposite hip. They each stopped about 10 meters from the other, watching each other in silence. The fierce wind howled a sorrowful, hollow sound as it slid between the stones along the basin's rim. The man's gloved hands rose to his waist, one resting on the scimitar's pommel and the other on a pokéball. Doron slid off his pack and let it fall to the sand, the sableye crawling out and perching on his shoulder. The mawile stood beside him and offered the strange man a fearsome glare. The sableye gnashed its razor teeth, the gemstones emerging from its purplish flesh glistening in the fading sunlight.

"I am Doron Woeth," he said, finally. "I am a researcher from the lab in Mossdeep. We believe that ancient meteorite fragments of zirconium are stashed away in vaults within the tower. I was sent to retrieve them."

The man furrowed his brow. "I am Hon, the tower's guardian."

"I mean you no harm. I am a scientist, I come only to sample the-"

"No," Hon said, cutting him off. "You are not permitted to enter the tower. None are."

Doron shifted uncomfortably. "Why?"

"There are ancient forces within the tower," Hon said, stepping forward. "Forces that must not be disturbed."

Doron bit his chapped bottom lip. "Please, I do not wish to… _disturb_ any forces. I've just come for some rocks. You can escort me, by all means. But I've traveled too far to not retrieve those samples."

Hon grinned. "Then you wish to fight?" His hand gripped the hilt of the scimitar, his back arched forward. The mawile spun around, exposing its massive black jaws, clamping them furiously.

" _MAW! MAW!_ " it roared.

Doron stepped in front of it, palms open and outstretched. "No, no," he said. "I do not wish to fight. Only to retrieve the stones. Please, these stones could provide valuable insight into the conditions of the early formation of the planet… of the entire star system. The isotopes trapped within those zirconium crystals are billions of years old." Doron took a careful step forward. "And probably radioactive. We'd be doing you a favor removing them."

Hon looked passed him at the small pokémon that stood no taller than Doron's knee. He smiled, "Your pokémon knows no fear." He removed his hand from the scimitar. "Do they battle without fear, as well?"

Doron raised an eyebrow. "Yes," he said, nodding. "They do, indeed."

"A bargain, then," Hon said, drawing a pokéball from his belt. "A battle. One-on-one. If I win, you leave and never return. If you win, I will guide you to the vault of the meteorites myself."

Doron glanced from the spherical, red and white pokéball in Hon's grip to the curved scimitar sheathed on his waist.

"Alright," he said. "You've got yourself a deal."

Hon showed his white teeth then, clenched together fiercely, and he threw the pokéball into the air without hesitation. A bright flash of red light emerged from the device and between them materialized the pokémon Vibrava, a dragonfly-like creature with two sets of green, veiny wings that fluttered rapidly and a long, narrow abdomen that terminated in green ovipostors. On either side of its head, perched on a chitinous thorax, were bulbous compound eyes beneath thin uniramous antennae. "Vibrava," Hon called, "you're the one!"

Doron nodded, reached into one of his pouches and retrieved a black and yellow ultraball. The mawile tugged at his breeches, " _Maw!_ " it cried.

"No, Mawile. Not this time. I've got something else in mind," he told it. He threw the ultraball into the air and it burst open, a zigzagging blaze of light emerging and on the dusty plain appeared the pokémon Carbink. The carbink hovered above the ground, its rocky body cluttered with bright blue crystals and peering over a puff of fluffy, white fur were two glowing eyes and a pair of pointed ears making the pokémon look like some fairy hiding in a stone shell.

"Carbink!" Doron called. The hovering pokémon glanced back at Doron over its white fur. "I need you, friend."

The carbink nodded. " _Bink!_ " it chirped, its voice almost song-like.

"Let's waste no time," Hon said. "Vibrava, use Earth Power!"

"Carbink, focus! Use Calm Mind!" Doron shouted as the opposing Vibrava fluttered into the air, arching its back and focusing its power into the earth. He felt the ground begin to rumble and quake and it opened beneath Carbink, thermal blasts erupting from deep within the ground. Carbink closed its eyes in pain as the blast consumed it.

"Yes, good job!" Hon called out to Vibrava. It glanced back cheerfully at the approval.

" _Brava!_ " it cried.

Once the dust settled, Doron could see the carbink now, and it was surrounded by twirling waves of psychic energy. Its eyes were closed, its face calm and serene, long pointed ears laid back against its fluff. "Keep at it, Carbink!" Doron called. "Calm Mind!"

Hon laughed. "We won't quit! Vibrava, again, use Earth Power! Show them your strength!"

The Vibrava rose once more, the earth quaking beneath them. The ground cracked open and clouds of dust and thermal heat rose in fierce pillars around the carbink, but it seemed little affected this time. Hon growled in frustration. "Argh! Again!" he shouted.

Again and again the vibrava controlled the earth, blasting Carbink with geothermal energy and mounds of sand and rock, but as the carbink stayed calm and focused, the damage it caused increasingly sank until it did not noticeably harm the carbink at all. The carbink now glowed bright, pulsating with power.

"Now is the time, Carbink! Use Moonblast!" Doron commanded. The carbink's eyes now opened for the first time, so bright with intense power that Hon threw his arm over his eyes, gasping. The carbink then focused the pulsating waves into a single sphere that floated just overhead, growing larger and larger. Finally, the carbink hurled the sphere at the vibrava who was helpless to dodge it. The force was strong enough to knock the pokémon out of the air and send it sprawling onto its back.

" _Bink, bink!_ " the carbink sang.

"Nice job!" Doron said, clapping.

Hon rushed to the vibrava. "Are you alright? Can you hear me?" he asked, cradling its head. The vibrava looked up at its trainer with fading eyes, its body twitching in pain. Hon removed its pokéball from his waist once more and held it out. "Get some rest, Vibrava. Return."

The pokémon disappeared in a flash and returned to the pokéball. Hon sighed in defeat. "Well done," he said, rising. "You're a very talented trainer."

Doron patted the carbink's soft head, scratching between its ears. The carbink purred in delight. "Your Vibrava is very strong," he said. "That Earth Power was quite impressive."

"But not enough, eh?" Hon said, laughing. "You've earned your tour of the tower. Come, it's almost nightfall. You should stay here for the night."

"Carbink, return," Doron said, holding out the ultraball. "We would appreciate the shelter."

Hon nodded. "Of course. Come inside. My order will be happy to host you."

"Your order?" Doron asked, confused.

"Yes," he said, grinning. "You see, there's about a dozen of us sworn to protect this tower. We live here in the tunnels beneath the vaults." He blushed, scratched his chin. "I may have misled you a bit. You see, we're actually quite welcoming. I just enjoy a good pokémon battle and it's rare we get visitors out here. When I saw you approaching with your pokémon, I decided to play a little game."

Doron snorted. "I see. So if I had refused?"

Hon shrugged. "I would've let you pass. But it was fun, eh?"

"Yes," Doron said, smiling. "It was fun."

"Come inside," Hon said, gesturing towards the dark entrance. "Tonight there will be roast. We are magnificent chefs, if I do say so myself!"

"We are mighty hungry," Doron said, rubbing his stomach. "A meal would be great."

As he approached the robed man suddenly he noticed the sky draining of color and in an instant the entire tower seemed to collapse like dough. He stumbled back, gasping, the robed man grinning as his features oozed down his face and the ground around them turned to slime. Doron stumbled back, suddenly feeling weightless, nauseous, and a sharp pain jolted up his side. "Argh!" he moaned, his feet now out from under him but he wasn't falling, but rather rising-up and up and up into the melting horizon until all the dreamy world fell away and there was nothing but blackness and he was free-floating in vast, empty space encircled by twinkling stars. He tried to scream but no sound came from his open mouth.

Doron awoke as the force field around him collapsed. Hovering over him was the sableye, patting him softly on the chest, whining. He sat up, staring out from his cracked visor, and saw a tall figure rushing toward him in a white spacesuit, gliding over the asteroid's rocky surface. The figure knelt down over him and he saw through the dull visor the figure's face.

"Shawna?"


	5. Episode 5: In the Darkness

**Episode 5: In the Darkness**

"Dr. Woeth, I'm gonna need to hear that again."

The crew sat in a semicircle in the lounge room adjacent the fitness center on the halo wing. On the walls were each of their portraits in their space suits, smiling faces, below were their respective degrees and titles; posters of past missions, layers of the atmosphere, composition of the asteroid belts, various pokémon. Behind Ahmed was a stainless steel bookshelf that housed textbooks on subjects ranging geology, biochemistry, physics, genetics, etc.

Ahmed sipped from his steaming coffee mug. "Go on."

"I've already told you," Doron explained, gently pressing the ice pack against the purple bruise on his forehead. His legs were propped up on a stool and largely exposed, revealing numerous additional contusions. Fei sat on the floor beside them, nursing them with smaller ice packs. The mudkip blew bubbles at his feet. "One second I was walking to the pod, the next I was spinning through space. It all happened so fast."

"So you didn't see anything else? Anyone… out there with you?" Ahmed pressed.

"Ahmed," Shawna said from across the room, sternly. "Why don't you give him a minute?"

" _Ches_ ," the chesnaught groaned from its place on the cold floor, it too patting its swollen head with an ice pack.

"Forgive me, Dr. Walker, but you said you saw a creature out there standing over Dr. Woeth. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm a little weary of space monsters."

Shawna sighed. "I don't know what I saw."

"Vario? What'd you see?" Ahmed asked, as if she didn't speak.

" _Nada_ ," Vario said. "Me never left pod."

"Ahmed," Shawna said again, "Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe there wasn't anything."

"Then how can you explain that the good doctor here managed to survive with a cracked helmet? By the time you got there, he should've been a popsicle. But here he is without much more than a lump on his head." Ahmed rose, took a cautious step towards Doron. "What was out there with you, doctor?"

Doron stared Ahmed in the face. Ahmed tried to hold his gaze but after several moments of silence looked away. He ran his fingers through his black hair, exasperated, returning to his seat. The chesnaught touched him on the arm. " _Naught_ ," it said, trying to reassure its worried partner.

"Whatever it was," Fei said from the floor, "it can survive without oxygen in the vacuum of space. Apparently, it can traverse asteroids without a ship or giving itself away with any significant heat signature."

"Doron," Shawna said then, softly. "I don't know if I saw a creature or not. But I know I saw some sort of… _field_. Like, a protective sphere around you. I know of pokémon capable of this ability, but Sableye isn't one of them."

The sableye, hearing its name, glanced up from its place in the corner. " _Sable?_ "

"So something was protecting you," she continued. "I don't know _what_ , exactly, but there was something else on that asteroid besides us."

Doron's head ached and his vision was cloudy. He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, groaning as he did, and let his head fall against the chair's back. He closed his eyes and tried to remember. _What had I seen?_ he thought. He could remember only the tower. _The Mirage Tower. I had dreamt about it. I had met Hon there, just like I had all those years ago. But was it like it was? No… no, something was different. Something wasn't right_. He sighed, exhausted. "I… I just don't know," he said, barely audible.

"Why don't we give Doron some time to rest?" Fei said, rising. "Maybe a nap will clear your head?"

Doron nodded. "Thank you."

They all rose to leave, save Ahmed, who sat defiantly in his chair until all the others turned to look at him from the hallway. He pretended not to see them for several moments then, reluctantly, rose and followed, Chesnaught on his heels. Fei shut the door behind him.

" _Sable?_ " the sableye said, moving in its drunk-dancer walk towards Doron. " _Sableye_?"

The mawile looked up from Doron's lap, eyes red and droopy. _Yes_ , he thought. _Some sleep would do us well._ But as he closed his eyes, his brain began to race again. _That tower… the battle… the Order inside… What was different in the dream?_ He scratched his head. He had spent three days at the Mirage Tower as a graduate student, collecting zirconium meteors and battling with several youngsters from the Order. Hon was right, they were quite hospitable. Doron had been surprised by how interested the tower's protectors were in science, too-they asked him about the meteors, about the radioactive isotopes, what his field of study was, why he decided to travel on foot through the entire Route 111 desert instead of taking a trike, etc. Doron had admitted to them that he was no geologist, nor was he a physicist, but an evolutionary ecologist that specialized in space-faring pokémon that had managed to utilize certain organic and siliceous mineral deposits as energy sources. He explained that he thought this adaptation, probably originating in cave-dwelling pokémon, _could_ have been the needed evolutionary step for pokémon to colonize other planets, using comets and asteroids as veritable galactic shuttles.

"Not on purpose," he had explained to them. "You see, massive chunks of a planet's crust can be broken away by an enormous asteroid impact. Take the three moons of Gãia as an example. Each is believed to have originated as part of the planet's crust, but, during the early eons of the planet's formation, was broken away by massive cosmic collisions. The debris from the impact, trapped by the planet's gravity, then coalesced into the moons we know today. My theory is that this could've happened on the pokémon home-world, wherever that may be, and those pokémon that were cave-dwelling managed to survive on the mineral-rich asteroid as it was flung out into space."

The leader of the Order, a grizzled old man with a graying beard and bald, shiny head, asked, "Then why do so many pokémon today live in much different places? The desert, the jungle, the city. They live with humans, together as one."

"Pokémon colonized Gãia hundreds of thousands of years ago," Doron explained. "We believe that they've had ample time to diversify into the many niches that this planet has. With enough time, they have erased all evidence of their original life strategies from their current ecology. But they can't remove the evidence from their genes."

"What do you mean?"

Doron smiled. "Pokémon reproduce just like we do. They're exposed to the same kind of Darwinian natural selection that prompted the diversity of life on this planet. So, we know that they _must_ have some kind of molecule for storing genetic information, like all life on this planet has in the form of DNA. The problem is we don't yet know exactly what molecule that is. But once we find it, we'll be able to trace back the past metabolic pathways to determine if all pokémon on Gãia were once capable of metabolizing organic and siliceous minerals. If so, then it'd be strong evidence of a space-faring origin."

"Then your Carbink and Sableye would be, what, the original pokémon?" he asked.

"Not exactly. They maintained the original life strategy here, but they are far from what the first pokémon may have looked like. They, too, have undergone significant change from that original ancestor." He had gestured then to the sableye. "In fact, Sableye are believed to be an example of evolutionary _convergence_. That is to say, they diverged from the mineral-metabolizing ancestor, occupied a given niche for a long period of time, and then 're-discovered' the trait."

"How would one know that?"

"Phylogeny," Doron explained. "Historically, humans have grouped pokémon into 'types,' i.e. Normal, Fairy, Ghost, etc. Biologists believe that this represents a sort of crude genealogy-a hierarchical grouping of descent. So, for example, Sableye, being a Ghost/Dark type, is more 'kin' to a gengar or a misdreavus than, say, a carbink-a pokémon that utilizes the same metabolic niche as Sableye, but with different typing."

The Order's leader scratched his head. "That seems to present a problem though, right? I mean, you've got your dual types. How do we explain dual types?"

"Pokémon don't have the same sort of species specific reproductive pattern as is typical of Mayr's biological species concept. Instead, pokémon reproduce by _egg groups_. This grouping allows different 'types' to inter-breed."

"Yes, we know of this, but the species always breed true. We use it all the time. Never before have I seen a different pokémon than the mother species hatch."

"Rightly so!" Doron exclaimed. "Divergence takes both _time_ and, usually, _isolation_. With pokémon, which are all members of the macrofauna, geographical isolation is key. Also, we must recognize the issue with our whole 'typing' system. It's a crude, categorical grouping that is not _necessarily_ indicative of heritage, and it certainly doesn't represent true _lineal_ descent. For example, I mentioned earlier that Sableye and Gengar are more related than Carbink. True. But how close are they related compared to, say, Chanelure? These sorts of inter-typing disputes shed light on the problem of speciation in pokémon evolution."

Later that night, Hon had escorted Doron to the vaults as he'd promised. They ascended a flight of orange, hardened mud steps that spiraled heavenward and were illuminated by black torches lining the wall. After climbing several flights, Hon led Doron down a narrow, damp hallway that was dimly lit that terminated in a single stone door. The corridor was balmy, as there was little to no air circulation in this part of the tower, and rivers of sweat poured down his face. Hon approached the stone door, stopping just in its wake. He reached into his robe and produced a circular, metallic amulet that was set with a purple gemstone unknown to Doron. He watched in awe as Hon held up the amulet and the stone began to glow, casting their shadows like looming phantoms across the corridor. He heard the ancient hinges grumble as the door began to shift and come ajar. Only darkness greeted them on the other side.

"The fragments are inside," Hon had said, stepping back. Doron approached hesitantly, now wondering if perhaps he hadn't made a mistake. Maybe he'd misread this whole night, perhaps Hon and the Order were actually trying to kill him, to lure him into this dark room to feed him to some beast, or to let him slowly suffocate from the numbing heat. _Don't be ridiculous_ , he had told himself. _They've led you this far. They fed you. Hon brought you here._

"Are you not going in?" Doron asked.

Hon raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't part of the deal. I said I'd show you to the vaults. Well, here we are."

Doron nodded. "Alright. Thank you."

He took a slow step forward, then another, and another, and finally he arrived at the threshold of the Mirage Tower vaults. The air seeping out from inside the vaults was pungent, almost putrid, stale, and hot. He licked his lips nervously. "There's no light," he said. When he did not hear an answer, he turned to find that Hon was gone. The lone torch in the corridor shimmered eerily, and he saw then the walls were draped in cobwebs and each corner of the hall was infested with spiders. Along the base of the hall were scattered tiny rodent bones over which scampered brown, winged roaches. Doron knelt down and picked up a tiny tibia, turning it between his thumb and forefinger in the light. _A field mouse_ , he thought. He turned back to the vault-to the still darkness.

"What possessed me to go in?" he said to himself, aloud, sitting in the lounge room aboard _Kalos_. His legs and forehead were throbbing and the mawile was making soft, squeaking sounds as it slept. He spotted the sableye climbing through the steel rafters overhead, muttering to itself, giggling, and then climbing on. He scoffed. "I must've been out of my mind."

There was a knock at the door then that startled him and he leapt up from the chair, flinging the mawile halfway across the room-shrieking as it flew-which brought the sableye swinging down from the rafters in uproarious laughter.

" _Maw maw!_ " the mawile barked from the floor, clenched fist shaking at Doron. " _Maw!_ "

Doron limped to it. "I'm so sorry, Mawile. I didn't mean it, I was spooked."

"Doron?" a voice called from the other side of the door.

It was Shawna.

"Come," he called, staggering back to his chair. This time, the mawile chose to crawl into a chair of its own. "I'm sorry," he mouthed to the mawile as Shawna entered, but the pokémon folded its arms over its chest, huffed, and looked away.

"Is now a good time?" she asked, seeing the tension.

"As good as any," Doron said, gesturing for her to sit down. She wore her one-piece white suit with the arms and legs rolled up, the neck unzipped, and her thick dreads were tied behind her head. Several of them had been dyed various colors-red, blue, green. She wore a pair of thin, metal-rimmed glasses and a necklace that resembled a bike chain. Rising up her arms and legs were intricate geometrical patterns-spirals, cubes, tetrahedrons-tattooed in black ink that made them appear slightly faded against her dark skin. She sat down opposite him and rested her elbows on her thighs, cradling her face.

"Doron," she said after a moment of silence, "I saw something out there."

He didn't reply.

She glanced up. "I saw…" She bit her lip. Still, he remained silent. "I saw a creature." Pausing for a moment to let her statement seep in, she then uttered it again: "I saw a creature. I _know_ I did."

"A creature."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah."

They didn't say anything for several moments afterward-Shawna stared down at her own hands, he at his bruised legs and at the gray tiled floor. He could hear Mawile's breathing as it slowly drifted back to sleep, the occasional clinking of Sableye's claws against a metal object, but other than these the chamber was utterly silent.

 _In the darkness_.

"The darkness," he said aloud.

"What?"

Doron had drawn a pokéball from his pouch and held it out into the dark corridor of the Mirage Tower. "Larvesta, come out!" he said. A brief flash of red light appeared, illuminating the entire hallway for a moment, and then before him was a plump, segmented pokémon with long tufts of white fur emerging from around its head like a mane, and six stubby black legs to support it. Protruding from the pokémon's white mane were five whorled red horns. Upon hearing its name, the larvesta glanced back with its dull blue eyes.

" _Vesta!_ " it cried.

"Larvesta, we need some light!" he called to it. The larvesta nodded, then, exhaling, produced plumes of flame from the horns above its head. The entire hallway was alight now, and the roaches quickly rushed back into holes in the wall and the spiders slunk back into their funnels. Doron pointed into the dark vaults ahead. "Alright, Larvesta, onward!"

" _Larvesta_ ," it said, nodding, pulling itself across the ground with its tiny legs. Dragging itself across the threshold and into the chamber, the fiery pillars rising from its horns pierced the darkness and Doron saw that the chamber was an immense, arched room with massive stone pillars. There were various other smaller stone doors at three positions around the circular room. It only took him a moment to see the pattern. _It's the unit circle_ , he thought, noting that the first door-the stone door he'd just entered through-marked position 0°, and that each of the remaining doors were exactly 90° from one another. He turned and glanced over the entryway and noticed a symbol etched into the stone: "0."

"Larvesta, over there," he said, pointing at the adjacent door. "Come on, hurry." They rushed to the next door and found a symbol etched there, too: "π/2." _The next will be π, and then 3π/2_. He checked, and they all matched. "The unit circle," he said aloud. "But why?"

" _Vesta_ ," the pokémon said, nodding toward the center of the chamber. Doron turned and noticed something he'd not seen before-some sort of stone structure. As he moved closer to it he realized that it wasn't just any structure-it was a tomb.

"Doron? What about the darkness?" Shawna said, bringing him back to _Kalos_. "What are you talking about?"

His brow was furrowed, mouth ajar. "I've seen it before."

"The creature? From the asteroid?"

"Yes," he said, looking at her now.

"Where?"

The larvesta stopped a few meters from the sarcophagus, shivering. " _Lar lar_ ," it squeaked, refusing to go any farther. Doron walked by it, his shadow now thrown over the stone coffin, and he wiped the dust and cobwebs from the engraving with the end of his sleeve. He leaned in close.

" _Vesta?_ " the larvesta quipped.

There was an odd pattern etched into the stone-three circular dots followed by a capital _C_ , a vertical line, and then a lower-cased _d_. This pattern was divided by a separate horizontal line that sat atop four additional black circles. He hunkered down on the narrow ledge, massaging his bearded face. _What could this mean?_ he thought, the larvesta watching him silently, flames sputtering out of its horns, its white mane frayed and wild. _Why had Hon left me here? Why hadn't they warned me of this?_ His face fell into his hands, defeated. "I don't know what this means," he said to the larvesta.

He rose and walked to the door directly adjacent the entrance with the π/2 etched above it. He grabbed the door handle and tugged, but it wouldn't budge. "Come on!" he barked, pulling with all his might, his boot against the wall. Still, the door didn't move. He tried the others-all locked.

"What is this?" he asked to the stale chamber. "What does this mean? What am I supposed to do?" He was staggering around the tomb in a circle, dragging his feet, eyes downcast, panting. The larvesta followed behind him.

He stopped at the door with the symbol π etched over it. "Why are you there?" he asked it. He produced his canteen from his pack, drank deeply and then poured some of the water over his head, soaking his scarf. "Circles," he said, sounding half-mad, wandering back over to the sarcophagus. "Always pi with circles." He sat back down, thinking about angles, about circles, about diameters, about radii, about…

 _Diameter_.

"Wait," he said, suddenly, rising. "Diameter. Circumference." He turned back to the pattern on the coffin. Next to the initial three black dots was scrawled a capital _C_ , a vertical line, and then a lower-cased _d_. "Circumference over diameter," he said, eyes widening. "It's pi!"

It all came together then-the three dots, the dashes, the symbols. With his finger he translated the pattern in the dust below on the coffin's surface.

3π/4

"A position!" he exclaimed, which excited the larvesta who cried out, " _Vesta vesta!_ " as he rushed back to the doors. "It's the unit circle," he said, smiling, "and these are all position markers-the first, 0, the next is π/2, the next is π…" He stopped, glanced back at the previous door. "Which means that 3π/4 is a position _between_ these two doors." He ran his hands across the stone wall, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. "Larvesta, I need light!" he called excitedly. "Hurry!"

He shimmied his way across the wall until he was about halfway between the two doors. "It should be right around here," he said. Just then his fingers brushed over a slight crack between two stones that was larger than any he'd felt over previously. He narrowed his eyes and slid his fingers into the crack. He felt something solid but movable-he pressed hard and it gave way.

Doron stumbled back away from the wall as it began to rumble, the stones breaking apart and falling inward, one-by-one. " _Lar-vesta!_ " the pokémon cried, astonished. Within the opening he could see mounds of dark rock and, glistening from Larvesta's burning light, interweaved shards of zircon crystals.

He laughed, throwing his hands victoriously over his head. "We did it!" he shouted. The larvesta chirped in agreement and fired off puffs of black smoke from its horns. He removed his pack and started toward the vault.

He never saw the lid of the tomb sliding from its place. He and the larvesta were inside of the vault, he packing his bag with zircon meteor fragments and the larvesta chirping in delight beside him, while behind a shadowy form emerged from the sarcophagus, rising like smoke. He was unaware of it materializing behind him, taking the form of a bipedal creature with four tentacles, two on either side of its narrow abdomen, wildly flailing around it.

Doron had turned just in time to see the creature strike-its tentacles whipping across the hot air and slamming into his chest, sending him sprawling onto the floor. The larvesta roared and lowered its head, blasting flames towards the creature. But in an instant it was on the ceiling, dangling from a rafter.

A dark purple stone in the center of its abdomen began to glow.

" _Vesta!_ " the pokémon cried as it was lifted from the ground. The creature flicked its head and sent the larvesta flying across the chamber. It smashed into the stone wall, crying out from the force of the impact, and then fell unconscious to the floor.

Doron reached for the pouch containing his remaining pokéballs, but the creature was on him in a flash, tentacles wrapped around his wrist and yanking it from his belt. The two of them were face-to-face-Doron staring into its eyes that seemed impossibly pale, enormous but yet so small, pulsating with energy but utterly lifeless.

Shawna listened to him tell the story, brow furrowed and legs crossed. "I woke up outside the stone door," he said, rubbing his forehead. "Hon was standing over me, shaking me, asking me if I was alright. I looked around and realized I was still in the corridor outside the vault. I had never gone in."

"What do you mean?"

Doron shrugged. "Hon said that I had passed out."

"But, didn't you get the meteorites?"

"Yeah. They were in my pack next to me. Hon said he had gathered them for me and then returned to find me on the floor. He said that I had gotten too hot. Fainted."

"But what about Larvesta? Did it know anything?"

Doron scoffed. "Not as if it could speak. But I did try. When I questioned it later, it seemed oblivious about the entire event. I must've just… forgotten."

"How could you forget that?"

"I thought it was a dream," he said. "I mean, it didn't seem to make any sense. What was that thing? Why was it there? Why did it attack us?" Doron sighed. "It just seemed more reasonable that I had passed out from heat exhaustion."

"Why would Hon lie?" she asked, arms folded across her chest. "What are they hiding?"

"I don't know." He rose then, leaning heavily on the arm of his chair, legs aching. "But that creature out there," he gestured outside the _Kalos_ towards the asteroid belt, "it had the same eyes. Those terrible… empty eyes."

"It was the tentacles that I saw," she said, rising and moving beside him. "It was standing over you, Doron. Its chest was… I don't know… _glowing_. It was _glowing_. And it had one of its tentacles touching your forehead." She gently touched the center of his brow. "Here."

He took her hand. "It was showing me something."

"Showing you?"

"Yes. While I was out, I dreamt about my trip to the Mirage Tower. But it was more than a dream. It was more like… like a vision. It was like I was _there_." He shook his head, realizing how wild his own words sounded. "I know it sounds crazy, but it seemed so real."

"Go on."

"The vision was stopped short. Just before I went into the tower." He stared into her dark eyes. "When I woke up and saw you."

"That's when it vanished, Doron. It saw me and just _vanished_ into space."

Doron released her hand. "It wanted me to remember."

"Remember what, exactly? That it attacked you years ago?"

"I don't know," he said. "But there's something in that tower. Something I'm supposed to see. To _remember_." His face was stony, his mouth a thin, flat line. "I have to go back to the tower. I have to know."

She reached down and took his hand again, nodding. "I'll go with you."


	6. Episode 6: Together

**Episode 6: Together**

The provost's visage was crisp and clear, standing across from Doron with his balled fists on his hips, unaffected by the absence of gravity. The wisps of white hair that remained on his otherwise wrinkled, blotchy head were neatly combed behind his pointed ears. His thin, triangular goatee was perfectly groomed, as were his long, curled eyebrows. He was draped in his collegiate robes of fine red and green silk, the jeweled medallion representing his rank and titles hanging heavily across his narrow shoulders.

Doron was strapped uncomfortably in the passenger seat in the _Kalos_ ' hull. Across from him, behind the provost, was Shawna, who watched worriedly. Strapped beside her was the plump lickitung, its whip-like tongue aimlessly flicking about.

"The Ecological Society anxiously awaits your arrival," the provost explained, his voice smooth and his words immaculately articulated. "The United Nations of Gãia sponsors will be in attendance as well."

"Provost Kiamen," Doron said, "I have called to express my deepest regrets-"

"-the conference will be held on the 21st day of Orbital Period 6," the provost went on as if Doron hadn't spoken. "I suggest you arrive by the 20th day to prep your presentation. We wouldn't want any unforeseen hiccups." The provost turned and took a few steps up the ramp, his back now to Doron. "The UNG grants provided to the university are central to our continuing research, as you know," he went on. "There are many other universities competing for access to these grants. But Vion has always delivered the most cutting-edge research in the system." He glanced over his shoulder at Doron. "The grants your own research has benefitted from."

"Yes," Doron said. "I'm aware of where the grants come from and the necessity of them."

"Good!" the provost said, turning. "Then you will be prepared to deliver an excellent presentation of your findings and methods."

Doron's gaze fell. "Provost, I… I am requesting permission to return to Gãia. To the Hoenn region. I… I must-"

"Gãia?" the provost said, feigning shock. "Why, heavens no! Based on your current location, you'll need to set a course directly for Vion if you are to present on the 21st."

"That's just it, Provost. I cannot present on the 21st."

The provost raised his thick, styled eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I must return to Gãia."

The provost approached him, hands behind his back. "For what purpose?" he said, head turned upward.

Doron swallowed hard. "I need to make an expedition to the Mirage Tower."

"The Mirage Tower," the provost repeated.

"Yes."

The provost remained silent, head upturned.

"Some… some things have occurred that need to be…" Doron stammered, searching for the words. "Examined."

"Some _things_."

"Yes."

"I see."

The provost glared down at Doron. "Dr. Woeth," he said, calmly, though his pale eyes burned with fury, "When you came to VU, you were a green-eared postdoc with nothing more than sand in your boots. You stunk of saltwater and fish from too much time in that filthy ocean water around Mossdeep. Chasing, what was it? Echinoderms?"

"Crustaceans."

"Ah, yes. _Arthropods_ ," he said in disgust. " _Bugs_."

Doron bit his tongue, his face reddening. He pumped his fists, and if it hadn't of been for Shawna shaking her head, waving him off, he may have exploded.

"Little things," the provost went on, grinning now, delighting in Doron's rage. "Here at VU, we offered you a chance to study pokémon-nature's _true_ genius. Granted, you had some wild ideas concerning their evolution, their origin… But we overlooked that." The provost reached up and stroked his pointed goatee. "You showed… promise to several members of the board." The provost snorted in derision. "You are a product of democracy," he said. "And now the board, the Ecological Society, and the UNG are all pressing the university-pressing _me_ -to demonstrate what fruits you have borne." He approached Doron, bent over and stared him in the face. "And you're going to deliver."

Doron glared back, furious.

"I look forward to seeing your presentation," the provost said, smiling now. He rose and turned as if about to leave. "Oh, and one more thing." He turned back and made a flippant gesture at Doron's face. "Be sure to shave. You look like an Orbiter."

He held Doron's stare for several moments and then vanished. Doron reached up and switched off the hologram streamer from his glasses, and then removed them. He clenched his teeth, trying to hold in his anger, but it was too much. He roared, slamming his fists against the arms of the chair.

Shawna was looking down at her boots. "I'm sorry, Doron."

Ahmed entered the chamber from the pilot's bay, pulling himself along with the aid of the support bars. "I guess we're going to Vion, after all?"

Doron didn't say anything.

"Yes," Shawna said. "To Vion."

Ahmed nodded. "Alright, I'll set a course."

"Thank you."

The MREs the crew ate for dinner were tasteless beef macaroni that they washed down with mineral water. There was little conversation while they ate. Overhead, softly playing from the mounted speakers in the kitchen hall was Diantha's hit song, _Baby, I Never Lose_ , a rhythmic ballad about a lost lover. Ahmed mouthed the words under his breath as he ate, the chesnaught humming beside him. Fei forked a few noodles and fed them to the mudkip that sat eagerly at her side. " _Mud kip kip!_ " it exclaimed after each bite. Vario, his Karrablast on the table beside him eyeing his plate, ate quietly, his tablet on the table beside him displaying an old photo album of his family back home. He fingered through the album, swiping from one picture to the next, longing to see them again. Shawna ate half her plate and fed the rest to Lickitung, who, in a single sweep of its tongue, cleaned the entire plate.

Doron did not touch his food. His chin rested on his knuckles, elbows on the table, deep in thought. The sableye sat on his shoulder, gnawing a small quartz crystal. The mawile stood in the chair beside him so that it could reach the table, eating handfuls of macaroni, its face covered in sauce and noodles.

Shawna watched him from the other end of the table. _We will go to this conference, suffer through it, and then we'll go to Hoenn_ , she thought. _We'll go to the Mirage Tower and get to the bottom of this._ She wanted to know what the creature was, and what it intended to show Doron, as much as he did. She could not close her eyes without seeing its tentacled arms flailing around and the eerie, purple jewel in its chest glowing brightly. She had been at once terrified and in complete awe of the monster. _It could have just left Doron to die_ , she thought. _But it didn't. It purposefully saved him. Why?_

She could tell that Doron was having similar thoughts. He stared off pensively into space, his mind millions of kilometers away from this ship. His gruff, unkempt beard and wild, wavy hair made him look like a madman-startling when juxtaposed with the neat, clean-shaven Dr. Woeth she had been interviewed by prior to the mission's launch. He had been clad in his black collegiate robes with his red sash and he wore his gray trencher atop his freshly cut hair. _His work consumes him_ , she thought. Throughout the expedition, he'd barely managed to maintain basic hygiene, much less a regular shave. He spent hours in the laboratory, pouring over the data sheets of organic compounds that she printed from the IR spectroscope. Even without being a chemist, he'd learned to make sense of the seemingly random peaks and patterns of the graph that had taken her years to interpret. When he wasn't in her lab drilling her with questions about the compounds he collected, he was in his studying typing up reports and burying his nose in obscure ecological and astronomical literature. _He never takes a break_ , she thought. _He never rests_.

"Doron," she called then. The table went silent. "Dr. Woeth."

He blinked. "Yes?"

"How about a pokémon battle? You and me."

He was taken aback. "A pokémon battle? Now?"

"Right now."

The crew swiveled their heads from Shawna to Doron and back.

He smiled. "Absolutely."

The battle gym was located on the second halo chamber and faintly resembled a basketball court, complete with hardwood floor and painted lines that indicated the trainer boxes. Rows of benches lined either side of the gym, and the other members of the crew gathered eagerly to watch. Fei and her mudkip cheered from the bench, clapping their hands in excitement. Ahmed sat on the other side of the bench, arms folded across his chest, grinning, at ease for the first time in days. _We all need this_ , Shawna thought as she took her position in the trainer box opposite Doron. _We all need a distraction from these hectic past couple of days_.

Doron entered the trainer box, stepping over the painted white line, Mawile and Sableye at his heels. He knelt down to them, patting them both on the head. "How are we feeling?" he asked them. "Would you like to battle today?"

" _Mawile!_ "

" _Sable sable!_ "

He smiled. "Alright, let's do it!" He rose and turned to Shawna. "A double-battle. Two-on-two."

Shawna nodded. "Sounds good to me!" She was flanked by her plump, pink lickitung, its slimy tongue almost reaching the floor. She drew a pokéball from her belt. "Alright, Pumpkaboo, let's show them what we've got!" She threw the pokéball into the air and the round, pumpkin-shaped pokémon materialized before her. It had a dark, leafy collar draping its dull orange body from which peered two yellow eyes sitting above two wider, bright circles that appeared carved into its body-wall like a jack-o-lantern. The apical terminal of the stem curled into a spiral. The lickitung lumbered up beside the pumpkaboo and they turned and nodded to one another.

" _Ches!_ " the chesnaught roared from the bench next to Ahmed, excitedly.

The sableye waltzed to its position in front of Doron, its hips swaying like a dancer and its arms massaging the air as if it were wading through water. The mawile joined it, head lowered so as to keep its massive jaws hidden behind its back. Around its neck was a black collar with a tri-colored jewel.

Ahmed rose and walked to the edge of the court. "Alright, trainers! Let the battle begin!"

"Okay, let's go," Doron said. "Sableye, use Fake-Out on that Lickitung!" He then raised his right hand into the air and pulled back his sleeve to reveal his key stone bracelet. He reached out and touched the stone with his first two fingers. "Mawile, Mega Evolve!"

"Pumpkaboo, Leech Seed on the Sableye!" Shawna called. "Lickitung, use Curse!"

The mawile was suddenly surrounded by a sphere of blinding light as its mega stone reacted with Doron's key stone. In a flash, the sphere burst open to reveal Mega Mawile-now with two sets of jaws protruding from its head, its bell-bottom legs and abdomen altered in color to a dark purplish-pink, its black locks extending nearly to the hardwood floor. It changed its pose, spinning around now and facing its opponents with its massive, dual menacing jaws that clamped fiercely. Its eyes now dark red and narrowed threateningly.

The sableye leapt forward swiftly, darting through the air almost weightlessly, and clapped its clawed hands into front of the Lickitung. The plump pokémon stumbled backwards, blinking.

The pumpkaboo lowered its stemmed head and fired a barrage of seeds towards the sableye, which buried into its flesh. The ghostly pokémon stumbled backwards and tried to scrape away the seeds to no avail.

The mega-evolved mawile then began its dance-its twin jaws rising over its head, one stubby leg lifting gracefully from the ground, sending it into a pirouette. Phantom swords materialized around its body, spinning in unison, boosting the pokémon's power.

Sableye groaned as its life-force began draining as the seeds seeped into its purplish flesh, transferring its energy to the pumpkaboo who giggled in delight.

"Alright, Pumpkaboo, now use Will-O-Wisp on that Mega Mawile! Cut its power!" Shawna commanded. "And Lickitung, let's try that again! Curse!"

"Sableye, Confuse Ray on that Pumpkaboo, don't let it cut Mega Mawile's attack!" Doron quickly responded. "Mega Mawile, Iron Head on that Lickitung!"

The sableye moved first, the prankster that it was, and from its glistening gemstone eyes shot a ray of twirling ghostly light that swirled around the pumpkaboo. It staggered in place, trying to regain its balance, but, confused, it fell backwards onto the ground. " _Boo!_ " it cried in pain.

"No, Pumpkaboo! You've got to snap out of it!"

The Mega Mawile lifted its massive twin jaws into the air and suddenly they became metallic, as if coated with steel, and Doron cheered as it darted across the court and slammed into the lickitung, knocking it off its feet.

"Great job, Mega Mawile!" Doron called.

" _Mawile!_ " it responded, grinning.

The lickitung struggled to its feet, however, and closed its beady black eyes. As it did, ghostly spirits appeared around it, spiraling like a vortex, and the lickitung roared as it felt the dark power flowing through it.

" _Sable_ ," the sableye groaned as more of its life-energy was drained from the seeds in its flesh.

"Hang in there, Sableye!" Doron called. "Now, use Will-O-Wisp on that Lickitung! And Mega Mawile, use Sucker-Punch on that Pumpkaboo!"

Shawna laughed. "Not so fast! Pumpkaboo, Leech Seed on that Mega Mawile and Lickitung, use Curse again!"

The prankster sableye was the first to move, its swaying arms producing purplish flames that fired across the court and scorched the lickitung. It grimaced in pain, falling to its knees. The Mega Mawile's jaws began to glow with shadowy energy, but it evaporated as the pumpkaboo managed to fired its life-sapping seeds onto it, regaining its composure after its previous confusion.

"No, it didn't use an attack move," Doron said, frustrated. _Sucker-Punch is useless if the pumpkaboo doesn't attack_ , he thought.

The lickitung was the last to move, and again it sent phantom spirits arounds its fat pink body, boosting its power.

Now both Sableye and Mega Mawile felt their life being sapped away by the seeds burrowing into their flesh, fueling the opposing Pumpkaboo. The lickitung groaned as its burned flesh ached.

"This is getting intense!" Fei exclaimed from the bench. She glanced over and patted her mudkip's finned head. "What do you think?"

" _Kip kip!_ "

"We're not done yet," Doron said. "Sableye, now Will-O-Wisp on that Pumpkaboo, and Mega Mawile use Iron Head on Lickitung!"

"Pumpkaboo, use Shadow Sneak on Mega Mawile! Lickitung, quick, use Rest!" Shawna commanded.

This time, the pumpkaboo moved first with its priority Shadow Sneak, its physical body fading away into a black shadow that crept across the floor, appeared behind the mega-evolved mawile, and rose as two menacing red eyes that struck out and slammed into the pokémon's back. The move had little effect, however, and Mega Mawile maintained its firm composure. The sableye fired its purplish flames then at the pumpkaboo, scorching it as it had the lickitung. Before the lickitung could fall asleep and regain its health, the mega-evolved mawile was across the court, its twin jaws shining like steel, and it bashed the lickitung to the floor.

"Lickitung is unable to battle!" Ahmed called from the sideline.

Shawna rushed to its side. "Oh no, Lickitung!" she called, lifting its head gently. "You did great out there, friend. Get some good rest." She returned the pokémon to its pokéball and slid it into the pouch on her belt. "We're not done yet, right Pumpkaboo?"

" _Pumpka!_ " it called in agreement, its bright eyes still burning bright behind its dark, leafy stem.

Doron nodded, smiling. "Good, because neither are we! Sableye, use Confuse Ray once more! Mega Mawile, let's go, Sucker-Punch!"

 _We need to do some damage!_ Shawna thought. "Okay, Pumpkaboo, Seed Bomb on that Sableye!"

As the pumpkin pokémon lowered its stem, readying to fire seeds once more, it never saw the mega-evolved mawile sweep in front of it, massive jaws bursting in shadowy energy. " _Pumpka!_ " it cried in terror just before it was struck. The pumpkaboo flew backwards, crashing hard onto the court floor.

"Pumpkaboo is unable to battle, Dr. Woeth is the winner!" Ahmed called from the sideline. Fei rose and clapped, cheering, and her mudkip cooed and burped bubbles.

" _Muy bueno!_ " Vario called.

Shawna crossed the court and offered Doron her hand. "Great job, Doron."

He took her hand. "Thanks for this, Shawna. I think we really needed it." He looked down at Mawile and Sableye. "What do you guys think?" They both chirped in agreement and threw their arms around Doron's legs. " _Maw maw!_ " the mawile said, now transformed back to its normal form. " _Sableye!_ " agreed the sableye.

"I thought you might," she said, smiling. She gestured to the cheering crew. "Maybe they did, too."

Doron nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

She put her hand on Doron's shoulder. "Don't worry. After the conference, we'll go to the Mirage Tower. We'll go together."

"Together," he echoed.


	7. Episode 7: The Rainbow Witch

**Episode 7: The Rainbow Witch**

Vion appeared as a cloudy sphere plopped against a field of black. The thick, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide rich atmosphere painted the planet alternating shades of light orange and red interwoven with streaks of white and yellow clouds. As the _Kalos_ drew nearer, traveling at 27,000 km/hr, various satellites and orbiting space shuttles came into view, their sun-sails and solar panels reflecting brightly. Ahmed flipped on the ship's intercom and announced: " _Moving into Vion's orbit_."

In the launch-bay, the rest of the crew were preparing the only surviving landing pod for entry into Vion's atmosphere. Shawna had already donned her thin, slick black suit and was scrolling through a launch check-list on the pod's terminal. Zhou Fei was sitting beside her, also in her suit, manning the valves and hoses responsible for refilling the pod's oxygen and fuel supplies. Beneath the pod, lying on a rolling cart was Vario, patching up a slightly damaged panel that had taken a hit from the debris on _O13-Z_. The karrablast was beside him, using its wrench-shaped horn to tighten down a bolt on the new panel. Fei's mudkip was running circles around the pod, chasing its own bubbles, and Lickitung was close behind it, chuckling in glee as it popped the ones that the mudkip missed.

Doron had not left his cabin in days. His hair was wild and unkempt, his beard a mangled mess on his pale face, eyes red and swollen. On either side of his computer monitor were stacks of journals and books, each with dozens of earmarked pages with multi-colored tabs, and on the floor around him were crumpled pages of discarded notes that had overflowed from the waste-basket. The mawile was trying to pick them up, a handful of pages at a time, but it couldn't manage to stuff anymore trash into the can. It shoved down into the plastic basket with all its might, but as soon as it stepped back the trash, as if on a spring, shot momentarily into the air and collected on the floor around it. Mawile sighed, flustered. " _Maw maw_ ," it said, under its breath. It looked disappointingly at the sableye, who was making no effort to help; instead it was perched atop a bookshelf scratching bizarre patterns into the wall. " _Maw!_ " the mawile called up to it. The sableye glance down for a moment, grinned wickedly, and returned to its play. The mawile finally just threw down the last of the trash and slowly approached Doron. It stood by his side, looking up longingly at him, visibly worried. Carefully, it tugged at his pants leg.

Doron glanced down. "Yes?" he said, tiredly.

The mawile bit its bottom lip. " _Maw… mawile_."

"I'm sorry, Mawile. I've got to get this finished."

" _Maw?_ "

Doron shook his head. "No, there's nothing you can do to help. Just… I don't know, try to entertain yourself."

The mawile, shoulders slumped forward in disappointment, wandered pitifully to the cot mounted on the wall of the cabin. Pulling itself up, it sat sadly on the edge of the bed, eyes downcast. It listened for some time to the giggling sableye as it vandalized the cabin wall. Finally, the mawile took hold of the pillow from the head of the cot and launched it across the room. The pillow found its target and knocked the sableye from its perch. The little purple pokémon fell screaming to the floor.

The mawile giggled. " _Maw!_ " it said.

The sableye hissed, rubbing its head. " _Sableye…_ "

"Will the two of you knock it off?" Doron said, spinning around in his swivel chair. "I don't have a lot of time to finish this and the two of you are being very distracting."

The _Kalos_ moved into Vion's orbit early on the 20th day of the 6th Orbital Period. Once the vessel was firmly locked in orbit, Ahmed rose from his chair and produced a pokéball from his belt. "Chesnaught, let's go, buddy," he said. In a flash of red light, the pokémon disappeared into the pokéball. Ahmed then pulled himself through the pilot's bay with the aid of the support beams, his feet slightly uplifted from the floor. He donned his black space suit and made his way down to the launch bay, where Fei and Shawna were waiting for him.

"Where's Dr. Woeth?" he asked.

"He said he still has work to do," Shawna explained. "He said he'll take the shuttle."

"Fine," Ahmed said. "I need to feel some real gravity under my feet."

The three of them sealed the landing pod, Ahmed in the pilot seat, and prepared to exit the _Kalos_. Ahmed made the necessary calculations, fingering the monitor, scrolling through available landing pad destinations. He settled for Bay 27-E on the northeastern corner of Sky City. He messaged a request for landing codes to the central regulatory towers and waited for a response. Behind him, in the passenger seats, Fei and Shawna sat quietly. Shawna was nervously tapping her fingers on the armrest, her mind flashing to the bundled landing on _O13-Z_. She closed her eyes and thought: _I never want to step on another asteroid again_.

In several moments, Ahmed received the necessary landing codes and triggered the bay door to open. Flashing lights mounted on either side of the sliding door cautioned pressure evacuation as the bay was exposed to the vacuum of space. Mechanical arms seized the pod and lowered it beneath the _Kalos_ hull, adjusting the angle of the pod specific to Ahmed's landing instructions. Shawna stared out the narrow, heavily tinted window that stretched halfway around the front of the pod at the cloudy, discolored planet below. She knew that somewhere down there, beneath several kilometers of the thick, CO2 rich atmosphere floated an entire city. A city supported by massive helium balloons and interconnected with a maze of catwalks and tunnels laid with tracks for the monorail to shuttle passengers from the outer terminals to the center of the city. _A city in the sky_ , she thought. She had never been to Vion-indeed, she'd never been off Gãia until now-but she had watched her share of documentaries on the planet, and had read several books on the engineers responsible for the near century-long construction of the city.

As Shawna was mulling over Sky City's construction, the pod was released and began its descent into Vion's atmosphere. The resistance was intense, and Shawna felt as if the pod was slamming into the side of a cliff as it rocked violently. As they descended, her vision of the planet was quickly obscured by the vast haze of carbon dioxide gas clouds. To her, it appeared as if they were falling through yellowish soup. She was completely oblivious as to how much distance had been traveled until Ahmed triggered the pod's twin parachutes to begin slowing the pod for landing. She felt a brief jerk and was certain her stomach had leapt into her throat. Beyond all of this, the most bizarre sensation was her own weight. She suddenly felt heavy, as if stones were dangling from her shoulders, her knees, her ankles. She felt an almost unbearable force pulling down on her, slumping her forward. _True gravity_ , she thought. She had experienced only the simulated gravity of the halo chambers aboard _Kalos_ , the nauseating pressure of centripetal force. Now she felt the full weight of her mass as it was attracted by the tug of Vion's-a relationship she'd learned in secondary school. _The gravitational constant, G, is directly proportional to the mass of the two objects divided by the radius, squared, which is equal to the amount of force generated by gravity, F_ _g_.

Ahmed reached forward and shoved a lever forward, and Shawna felt the landing gear beneath her feet unfolding and extending downward towards the incoming landing pad. Still, her vision was obscured by the hazy gas clouds and she could see nothing of the structure approaching.

The landing itself was smooth, and she felt only a slight impact as the metallic legs touched the platform. She glanced over Ahmed's shoulder at the readings on the display. The temperature gauge registered at 130°C, but the barometer was nearly 1 Gãian atmosphere (about 14.7 psi). She knew from her courses in physical chemistry, however, that the atmospheric composure of Vion was far from Gãia's, which was largely composed of nitrogenous gas, hydrogen, some carbon dioxide, trace amounts of ozone, krypton, neon, and helium. The hazy gas clouds surrounding the platform were largely carbon dioxide-indeed, the entire atmosphere of Vion was over 96% CO2 by volume. The rest was largely sulfurous acid and nitrogen. _In short,_ she thought, _utterly poisonous to humans_.

As Ahmed opened the pod's dorsal door, she glanced up to see two suited figures leaning in with arms outstretched. "How you folks feeling in there?" one of them asked.

"A little heavy," Fei said, her small chest taking deep breaths.

"That's to be expected. Several months in low gravity will do that to you. We're here to help you out and get you to the track."

"We appreciate it very much," Fei said, grinning up at them through her visor.

The two suited men pulled them up one by one. On the platform were positioned three wheeled chairs about which were several Koffing gathered-a gaseous pokémon that floated freely, spherically shaped, with various pores from which puffed greenish fumes. They offered comical grins to the three passengers as they were led to the chairs. " _Koffing!_ " they called in unison.

"Thank you, Koffing," Fei said, offering them a smile.

Shawna spotted three additional suited figures on the edge of the platform, each clad in heat-resistant suits with gaudy masks from which jutted hoses connected to bulky tanks on their backs. They were each seated upon an Arcanine, a giant wolf-like pokémon with black stripes across its red, furry back and a thick white mane that flowed wildly in the poisonous wind. One snorted and black smoke rose from its nostrils.

"Who are they?" Shawna asked one of the suited men who had helped them from the pod. She was now sitting in the chair, grateful that her own weight no longer had to be supported by her weak legs.

"Patrol," one of them replied. "Ever since the Orbiter rebellion, the city has seen an uptick in violence." He glanced up from strapping her into the chair in the direction of the guards. "Sad, really," he went on. "Never needed scouts and patrols before the Orbiters rose up. Now, everyone is on edge."

"Is Sky City a target?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes. Usually, it's a lone insurrectionist that carries out an attack in the city major. But recently, some of our landing bays have been attacked by fighter planes."

Shawna was taken aback. "The Orbiters have that sort of technology?"

"It appears so," he said.

"Are there other settlements on Vion beside Sky City? I mean, where would they house these planes?"

"There are no other settlements that we know of, but it's hard to patrol an entire planet. Especially one as… _hazy_ as Vion."

"I can't see a thing," she said, looking out across the platform into the thick atmosphere.

"No, and even our most sophisticated instruments have difficulty detecting objects through it."

Suddenly, one of the patrol guards approached them, the arcanine he rode upon snorting and snarling as it was prodded forward. "Let's get moving," he said, sternly. "Don't dilly on the platform."

The three of them were wheeled across the platform to a massive cylindrical chamber that seemed to stretch at least a kilometer into the haze. The suited man who had spoken with Shawna punched several keys on a reinforced monitor to the door's right. The metal hinges roared as the door slid open, revealing another chamber that appeared almost too narrow to be part of the same structure. Once the door behind them was closed, the chamber was pressurized from an array of hoses built into the framework. Shawna watched as the colorless, odorless plumes of vapor-like gas flooded the chamber.

Once inside the transport terminal, they were led to bathrooms to change into normal clothing with the help of young aides who did not speak as they went about removing their suits. Shawna waved off the chair as she staggered out of the bathroom.

"I need to walk," she said.

The terminal was bustling with people and pokémon, all crowded around the steely monorail where blue-suited men and women called out destinations from mounted screens overhead. As people boarded or exited, they smiled and told them "Welcome!" or "Good day!" She saw that one of them had a chatot perched on her shoulder-a pokémon with blue feathers and a yellow underbelly, a musical-note shaped ornamentation about its neck, and a curved pink beak. The chatot repeated " _Welcome! Welcome!_ " and " _Good day! Good day!_ "

Vendors lined the walls parallel to the track, peddling deep-fried food items such as corn dogs and funnel cakes; others pushed ice cream carts up and down the terminal, shouting out flavors. Painted on the side of one of the carts was a vanilluxe grinning insanely. There were performers, too, some of which were singing and doing various dance routines with pokémon. One such performer was a woman with tricolored hair in a flowing rainbow gown, twirling about with sparklers in each hand, and over her head a porygon hovered, casting triangular beams of elemental power that spun around her majestically. A crowd had gathered and was cheering.

"Dr. Walker, are you sure you don't want to ride in the chair? Most take at least a day or two to get their strength back," one of the aides said from behind her.

"No," she said, leaning heavily against the terminal wall. "I'll be fine. Where's Fei?"

"Still changing."

Shawna made her way through the crowd to the mounted screens to find which route they needed to take to the university. As she stood reading the scrolling list she failed to notice that the terminal had suddenly grown quiet. She glanced down from the monitors to see that a crowd had now gathered around _her_. She stared at them, her mouth slightly ajar-their bulging eyes, surprised expressions. Some of them were in suits and ties, toting briefcases, others were in jumpsuits or black heat-resistant gear on their way to work, others had children clinging to their legs or cradled against their bosom. But they were all looking at her.

Suddenly, she realized that standing opposite her, just beneath the monitors, was the woman in the rainbow dress. She had ceased her dance and the porygon was now levitating at her side. The woman had oval eyes that were shades of green, deep purple lipstick that popped against her white blush. Her eyebrows were thin and may have been painted on. She had long, seemingly unending hair of red, green, and blue braided near to the floor. On her neck she wore some sort of triangle pendant.

As she approached, her eyes twinkled with delight.

"You," she said.

Shawna's eyes darted to either side of her, wondering if perhaps she was speaking to someone else.

"No, you," she said again, grinning.

Shawna pointed at her chest. "Me?"

"Yes, yes," she said, drawing closer now.

"Do I… Do I know you?"

The woman acted as if Shawna had not spoken. She reached out and took Shawna's arm gently, lifting it to eye-level. "These patterns," she said, referring to Shawna's tattoos, "what do they mean?"

"I'm sorry?"

She looked up and met Shawna's stare, briefly pausing.

"What do they _mean_?"

Shawna didn't understand. "Nothing. I mean, what? They're… they're patterns."

"Patterns," the woman repeated.

"Yeah, you know. Geometric patterns. Euclidean, hyperbolic."

She touched one specific pattern engulfed in a spiraling, hyperbolic pattern of colored cubes and spheres. Within these was a polyhedron of four triangles, each distinctly shaded. " _This_."

"That?"

"Yes."

"It's just a shape."

She raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Just a shape," she repeated.

"Yeah," Shawna said, pulling away. She took a cautious step backward. "It's just a shape, lady."

The woman blushed. "Of course."

"Of course?"

"Yes, of course," she said, shaking her head. "How silly of me. I thought it was… well, something else. My apologies, dear."

Shawna glanced around at the staring crowd. "I don't understand."

"Just a mistake," she said, turning away. Then, to the pokémon at her side, "Porygon! Signal Beam!" The porygon spun two full circles, chirped, and then cocked its head upward and fired a focused blast of bright light into the air. The crowd cheered as it erupted above them, raining down twinkling beads of color like a firecracker. The woman resumed her dance, and the crowd quickly commenced to surround her once more. Shawna was pushed to the edge, her legs still too weak to resist, and she found herself planted onto a metal bench on the edge of the monorail.

She sat breathing heavily, exhausted, sweat running down her face. She turned her arm over, almost instinctively, to look at the pattern the woman had referred to. As she did so, she felt a hand tapping on her shoulder.

Standing beside the bench was an old crone, hunched over and leaning against a gnarled wooden cane. She wore a headscarf that slightly hid her facial features in shadow, but Shawna could see strings of gray hair dangling from her forehead. Her pale eyes were just visible, and her pointed chin sported myriad boils and warts. "She's a witch," the old lady said, slightly under her breath. Shawna saw that she had only a few blackened teeth left. "She has seen the future."

"Ma'am, I'm not sure-" Shawna said, leaning away from her.

"She's seen it!" the lady screeched.

Shawna looked around but noticed that everyone was still crowding the performer, or had moved on. The monorail howled its guttural bell before sparking into action, disappearing into the tunnel ahead destined for the heart of Sky City. When Shawna turned back, the old woman was gone.

 _It was a tetrahedron_ , she thought, touching the tattooed pattern on her arm. _The woman's pendant. It wasn't just a triangle-it was a tetrahedron_.


End file.
